Theodor Escherich, an outstanding physician and scientist of the 19th century, was one of the earliest scientists to explore microorganisms. He founded the field of intestinal pathology and associated his name with the name Escherichia coli, which was discovered and named in 1885. From then on, the “E.coli clan” was endowed with the fate of…
In 2011, countries such as the United States, China, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and Australia launched the “Sc2.0 Project” to redesign and synthesize all 16 chromosomes of brewing yeast. This was the first attempt by humans to design and synthesize the genome of eukaryotes from scratch. On November 8, 2023, the latest research findings…
Recently, Tosin Thompson published a news article on Nature titled “How CRISPR gene editing could help treat Alzheimer’s”. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, affecting over 55 million people worldwide. It is expected that this number will nearly double by 2050. Most research on Alzheimer’s disease is driven by the amyloid protein…
Less than a month after the world’s first approval of CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing therapy, this therapy received a second approval – this time from the United States, due to its strict regulation and lucrative healthcare market. The UK regulatory agency approved this therapy on November 16th, which inactivates a gene as a means of treating…
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Land Microbiology have developed a synthetic biochemical cycle that directly converts carbon dioxide into the core acetyl CoA. Researchers are able to implement each of these three cycle modules in Escherichia coli, which represents an important step in achieving the synthesis of carbon dioxide fixation pathways in a…
Despite containing only 7.5 artificial chromosomes, highly edited strains still survive and replicate. Biologists have developed a yeast whose genome contains over 50% of artificially synthesized DNA. Standard brewing yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) stores its genetic blueprint on 16 chromosomes. In the new strain, 6.5 of these chromosomes were edited and synthesized in the laboratory, while…
Enzymes, as highly efficient catalysts evolved from nature, have fast turnover rates and precise specificity. Improving enzyme catalytic activity and stability is crucial in various biological, medical, and industrial applications. Multiple computational methods have been used to study the performance of enzyme variants, but accurately simulating the impact of mutants on enzyme catalytic ability remains…
Engineering proteins that enhance stability are widely used in the development of biological therapies or diagnostic reagents, as well as in other commercial and industrial applications. For this reason, many related experimental and computational methods have been developed, such as directed evolution, rational design, ancestor sequence reconstruction, and molecular dynamics simulation, which stabilize proteins by…
As is well known, microorganisms can produce abundant secondary metabolites and are an important source for drug development. Streptomyces is a star species in the development and research of microbial drugs, and many medical or agricultural antibiotics such as rapamycin (immunosuppressive agent), nystatin (antifungal), avermectin (insecticidal), and azamycin (antibacterial) are produced from Streptomyces. However, the…
Biobased Energy and Materials learned that recently, Dutch green chemical company Avantium announced that it will fully focus on the production and sales of FCDA and PEF technologies. It will stop investing in Ray technology for producing plantMEG (plant-based ethylene glycol) and plantMPG (plant-based propylene glycol) until suitable strategic equity partners are found. FDCA (Furanedicarboxylic…