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Reading, editing, and writing genomes — from base editors and prime editors to synthetic chromosomes and the line at heritable change.
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Engineered adeno-associated viruses used to carry therapeutic genes into human cells, the workhorse of in vivo gene therapy and the source of most of its limits.
Machine-learning systems that predict what shape a protein sequence folds into and that generate new proteins with no natural counterpart.
The 1975 meeting at which molecular biologists lifted their own moratorium on recombinant DNA work by agreeing a system of physical and biological containment.
A genome editing method that chemically converts one DNA base into another at a targeted site without cutting both strands of the double helix.
The first approved CRISPR-based medicine, which disrupts a fetal-haemoglobin repressor in a patient's own blood stem cells to treat sickle cell disease and beta thalassaemia.
A Texas biotechnology company founded in 2021 to recreate extinct species by editing the genomes of living relatives, and to spin out conservation technology from that work.
A bacterial defence system repurposed as a programmable DNA-cutting tool, in which a short guide RNA directs the Cas9 enzyme to a chosen sequence in almost any genome.
The attempt to recreate extinct organisms, in practice by editing a close living relative to carry some of the extinct animal's traits rather than restoring the species itself.
The use of DNA as a construction material rather than a carrier of genes, folding programmed sequences into nanoscale shapes, devices, and logic-gated containers.
Life-science research that produces knowledge or tools with legitimate purposes but foreseeable potential for catastrophic misuse, and the oversight regimes built around it.
Testing embryos created by IVF and choosing which to transfer, a routine clinical practice for single-gene disease whose extension to complex traits remains disputed.
French microbiologist who identified the second RNA that CRISPR-Cas9 requires, co-authored the 2012 paper that made the system programmable, and shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Outbreaks caused by a pathogen deliberately modified, synthesised, or released rather than one that emerged from nature, and the biosecurity programme built around preventing them.
The use of pluripotency factors to reset age-associated marks on DNA and chromatin, restoring youthful gene expression in cells without converting them into stem cells.
Targeted modification of the chemical marks that control gene expression, switching a gene off or on without altering the underlying DNA sequence.
The non-therapeutic use of gene transfer or gene regulation to improve athletic performance, prohibited in sport since the early 2000s with no publicly confirmed case.
Genetic elements engineered to bias their own inheritance above the Mendelian half, allowing an introduced trait to spread through a wild population.
The use of delivered genes to modify aging biology systemically, demonstrated in mice with telomerase and other constructs and untested in any controlled human trial.
Altering how a cell reads DNA so that reassigned codons encode amino acids not found in nature, producing organisms with chemistry and immunity no natural cell has.
Differential treatment of people on the basis of genetic information, and the uneven legal regime that restricts it in employment and health cover but rarely elsewhere.
The proposal to raise human cognitive ability by selecting or editing genetic variants, constrained by the extreme polygenicity of the trait and by pleiotropy.
American geneticist who helped invent direct genomic sequencing, founded the Personal Genome Project, and co-founded dozens of biotechnology companies.
The patchwork of national law, professional norms, funding rules, and international soft law that determines what may be done to a human genome and by whom.
The 2018 announcement that twin girls had been born from CRISPR-edited embryos in Shenzhen, and the scientific condemnation and criminal prosecution that followed.
Producing a human genetically identical to an existing person by somatic cell nuclear transfer, demonstrated to the blastocyst stage and never taken to a pregnancy.
Modification of human embryos, eggs, or sperm so that the genetic change is inherited by the resulting child and by all of their descendants.
Making functional eggs or sperm from pluripotent stem cells in culture, achieved end to end in mice and still short of the meiotic stages in humans.
Adult cells reprogrammed back to an embryonic-like state, capable of becoming any cell type in the body and of being derived from a specific patient.
American biochemist who co-authored the 2012 paper showing CRISPR-Cas9 could be programmed to cut chosen DNA sequences, and shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Four-component lipid vesicles that carry mRNA and other nucleic acids into cells, the delivery system behind mRNA vaccines and the first systemic in vivo CRISPR therapies.
Hypothetical organisms built from mirror-image biological molecules, which a large group of scientists argued in 2024 could evade immunity and predation and should not be created.
A set of IVF techniques that place a mother's nuclear DNA in a donor egg to prevent transmission of mitochondrial DNA disease, licensed in a few countries and used rarely.
Unintended DNA changes caused by genome editors, either at sites resembling the target or at the target itself, and the assays used to find them.
A technique that makes selected neurons light-sensitive by expressing microbial opsin genes in them, allowing their activity to be switched on or off on a millisecond timescale.
Transient expression of pluripotency factors that resets age-associated epigenetic marks in a cell while stopping short of erasing its differentiated identity.
The ranking of IVF embryos by polygenic risk scores computed from their inferred genotypes, sold commercially since 2019 and rejected as unvalidated by professional genetics bodies.
A genome editing method in which a nicking Cas9 fused to a reverse transcriptase writes a new DNA sequence specified by an extended guide RNA.
The problem of keeping humans healthy under deep-space radiation, and the shielding, pharmacological, and genetic strategies proposed to raise their tolerance.
Japanese physician-scientist who showed that four transcription factors can reprogram adult cells to a pluripotent state, sharing the 2012 Nobel Prize for the discovery.
Genetic modification of a living person's body cells to treat disease, producing a change that is not passed on to their children.
Structures grown by aggregating stem cells that reproduce stages of early embryonic development without fertilisation, and the regulatory categories they fall outside.
Genomes designed on a computer and assembled from chemically synthesized DNA, then installed in a cell to see whether the design lives.
The attempt to transfer stress-tolerance proteins from tardigrades into human cells, and the gap between what those experiments showed and how they were reported.
The transplantation of organs between species, now pursued with genetically engineered pigs whose antigens and clotting proteins have been altered to survive in a human recipient.
The four transcription factors Oct4, Sox2, Klf4 and c-Myc, which together convert a differentiated cell into an induced pluripotent stem cell.