Wired UK: The Bio-Crime Prophecy
Hacking computers is commonplace today and is at the forefront of national security concerns. But looking into the the future, hacking DNA is an emerging threat. Cells are living computers. DNA is software. Our bodies are networks. And they can all be hacked. Imagine a crime scene where your involvement has been spoofed. (See a...
Not all your DNA is the same.
In this study, published in Nature, Yale researchers discovered copy number variation (CNV) in skin cells, indicative that we are “mosaics” of cells with slightly different genomes. Next generation sequencing technology was used. You might think about it this way. If we had a million computers that were brand new, their hard drives would all...
Hacking the President’s DNA
Almost a year ago, I collaborated with Future Crimes visionary Marc Goodman and bestselling author and writer Steven Kotler to speculate how the advances in personalized medicine could be co-opted for less than altruistic purposes. We submitted the article to the Atlantic Magazine. The article appears in November 2012 issue, on your newsstand now. (Here’s the online...
iGEM Regionals complete, now onto World Championship
The iGEM genetic engineering competition regional events are over and now teams are heading to the World Championship, to be held at MIT in Cambridge November 2-5. The regional results can be found here. Overall, 190 teams from over 30 countries are participating and the competition is fierce! See you there! Recent News Articles iGEM Bioengineering...
Are dreams of Jurassic Park extinct?
A paper published October 10, 2012 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society Biological Sciences attempts to measure the half life of DNA. (Full text not available for free but a good overview can be found here in Nature news.) By measuring the decay of mitochondrial DNA in bone samples of the extinct New Zealand...
In Silico “Life”
Just over a week ago, researchers released the first in silico model of a living organism, the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium. This is the first time an entire organism’s metabolic processes have been integrated and modeled and it offers an unprecedented opportunity to do in silico experiments on the organism. Remarkably, the production of this model...
DNA Laser Printing
Abundance co-author Steven Kotler recently wrote in the Forbes Blog about a significant upshift in DNA synthesis technology. It’s called DNA Laser Printing. Created by a Bay Area startup called Cambrian Genomics, the technique solves a thorny problem with chemistry-based DNA synthesis: make a long enough oligonucleotide and it will contain errors. This happens...
Synthetic Biology Scorecard
In December 2010, the Obama administration published New Directions: The Ethics of Synthetic Biology and Emerging Technologies, a report from the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. Within the document were recommendations aimed to minimize risks from the technology while ensuring that social and economic benefits are realized. It suggested revisiting the topic...
DNA made into rewritable memory
Scientists have successfully turned DNA rewritable memory. Stanford researcher Drew Endy and his team have, using elements from a bacteriophage, built and demonstrated a rewritable recombinase addressable data (RAD) module. The system consists of a stretch of DNA flanked by sites that signal to enzymes made by the bacteriophage, instructing them to cut out the...
Time to write human genomes
In 1990, scientists launched one of the largest international collaborations in life science, an effort to sequence the human genome. This work inspired a new generation of genetic researchers and led to countless breakthroughs in new technologies, informatics, and medicine. I was one of the researchers who had their careers launched by this effort. Now,...
DNA meets DNS at SU/Fox Hollywood Program
Last week, at the Singularity University Hollywood Executive Program held at Fox Studios, I had the privilege of sharing some of my thoughts about synthetic biology to an all-star crowd. I was the bridge between a fanciful Ray Kurzweil, who shared his thoughts on the technological singularity, and the matter-of-fact Craig Venter, who discussed the...
Redesigning People: How far will you go?
My friend David Ewing Duncan recently published an fascinating piece in the Atlantic.com online site examining what’s ahead in medical technologies. What’s clear is that medtech and biotech are moving beyond the traditional boundaries of dire medical need and into the realm of human enhancement. There’s a fine line between exoskeletons to help a paralyzed...
