dna

by Misha Guptafigures by Xiaomeng Han For close to two centuries, humans have been studying the biological past using fossil records. In recent history, we have added the ability to reconstruct the sequence of our DNA to our arsenal. Furthermore,…

Asexual species do not have genetic variability like humans, and most animals, do. Despite that, they can still adapt to environmental changes using modifications to their DNA known as epigenetic changes.

Nanomachines are plagued by their short lifespans and the looming chaos in the environment. This group at TUM used a new tubular design made from DNA to keep the machine together, but the chaos out.

Jasmin Joseph-Chazan is a second-year PhD student in the Immunology department at Harvard University. You can find her on Twitter as @chazanjasmin. Isabella Fraschilla is a Ph.D. student in the Immunology Program at Harvard Medical School. She is…

by Isabella Fraschilla Gertrude Elion Despite never receiving a PhD, Gertrude Elion was awarded the 1988 Nobel Prize in Medicine. She shared this prize with Sir James Black and her mentor George Hitchings for revolutionizing pharmacology by…

Using electrical inputs and CRISPR biology, researchers have programmed bacteria to encode binary data.

by Apurva Govande figures by Tal Scully COVID-19, the disease caused by the newly discovered virus SARS-CoV-2, is a national emergency. We need a vaccine to prevent severe outcomes of disease, to successfully combat future outbreaks of this virus,…

by Catherine Gutierrez figures by Aparna Nathan Forty-nine years ago, President Richard Nixon launched a “War on Cancer”. That war has not ended—it rages on today, with cancer right behind heart disease as the leading cause of death in the United States.…

by Sam Zimmerman  figures by Hannah Zucker If we were all mice, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, diabetes, and most inherited disorders would be a thing of the past. We could nibble on as much cheese as we wanted without fear of heart disease and run around…

by Sydney Sherman figures by Aparna Nathan More likely than not, you or someone you know has taken a genetic test. Whether they are curious about their ethnic roots and family tree or want to determine their risk for developing a certain disease,…