Filed under: Biotech & Synthetic Biology
GM crops, gene editing, gene drives and synthetic biology – the science, the claims and the regulation.
Cultivated meat: a reality check
Six years after the first approval, cultivated meat is legal in a few places, banned in others and sold almost nowhere. The biology explains most of why.
Mapping the 'Mexican genome': the questions a 2009 launch skipped
In 2009 Mexico unveiled a 'map of the Mexican genome'. What the study found, what genomic sovereignty covered, and who has benefited since.
Bitter honey: Bt rootworms, GM pollen and the Mayan beekeepers
From resistant rootworms in Iowa to a European court ruling and Mayan honey in Campeche: how GM crops ran into bees, and how Mexico answered.
Gene drives: the case for caution and the case for trying
How CRISPR gene drives work, where the malaria mosquito work has got to, and why the argument about releasing one is harder than either side admits.
The FAO, biotech and who gets to speak for farmers
In 2010 the FAO held a biotech conference in Guadalajara as Mexico opened fields to GM maize trials. How the agency has shifted since, and what hasn't.
Digital sequence information and the Cali Fund: paying for genes that live in databases
Genetic data in open databases slipped past the Nagoya Protocol. COP16 answered with the Cali Fund. What companies are asked to pay, and what to watch.
From Hong Kong to Tianjin: synthetic biology's turn to Asia
In 2008 synthetic biology held its first big congress in Asia. Since then China and its neighbors have made the field a pillar of industrial policy.
When Europe revoked a patent on every GM soybean: questions and answers
In 2007 the EPO revoked a patent covering all GM soybeans. Why it fell, and how Europe's plant-patent fights led to the deadlock over gene-edited crops.
Rice, milk proteins and sick children in Lima: the Ventria trial revisited
In 2006 a US firm tested human milk proteins made in GM rice on children with diarrhoea in Peru. The trial, the ethics fight, and what came after.
Lab life 3.0: synthetic biology's long experiment in governing itself
In 2006 synthetic biologists offered to police themselves. Eighteen years later, what has self-governance delivered, and what did it leave out?
Synthia and the shotgun: what became of the synthetic cell
In 2007 Craig Venter's team sought patents on a minimal synthetic organism. What got built since, what got patented, and what 'synthetic life' means now.
Gene-edited plants and the EU: what Parliament voted for, and what happens next
The European Parliament backed a two-tier regime for gene-edited plants, with a patent ban attached. What the categories mean and what still has to happen.
