Researchers at MIT have developed tools that could one day allow intestinal bacteria to monitor, diagnose and treat diseases, writes Eryn Brown for The Los Angeles Times. "Just as you'd program computers, we're starting to learn how to program cells by modifying their DNA," says Prof. Timothy Lu.
Professor Kenneth Oye co-authored a commentary that urges regulators to work to prevent abuse following a study that finds that opioids can be home-manufactured by genetically engineering yeast, reports Eryn Brown for The Los Angeles Times. “[A]ll of these technical steps should be done beforehand,” says Oye. “Afterwards, it's too late."
Jessica Hamzelou writes for New Scientist that MIT researchers have been able to recover memories using light. The technique could eventually be used to help people with Alzheimer’s or amnesia. Hamzelou writes that Prof. Susumu Tonegawa, hopes to “develop a way to reactivate forgotten memories in people before the brain tissue itself is damaged, as is often the case in dementia.”
Washington Post reporter Rachel Feltman writes that MIT researchers have used optogenetics to reactive lost memories. The research indicates that, “retrograde amnesia -- where memories are lost after brain trauma -- may be more of a memory retrieval problem than an actual loss of data.”
According to AFP, MIT researchers were able to use a technology called optogenetics to retrieve lost memories. Professor Susumu Tonegawa explains that the research showed, “past memories may not be erased, but could simply be lost and inaccessible for recall."
Graduate student Dheeraj Roy speaks with Rachel Paiste of WBUR about a new study that indicates that memories lost to amnesia may be recalled by activating brain cells with light. Roy explains that the findings show that “in certain models of amnesia, memories do persist.”
After the release of a paper from U.C. Berkeley researchers detailing how certain strains of yeast may be used to produce opioids, Professor Kenneth Oye coauthored a commentary calling for regulation in the field, writes Lexi Pandell for Wired. “I haven’t seen anything quite like this before,” says Oye.
Rachel Feltman writes for The Washington Post about a commentary by Professor Kenneth Oye that calls for regulation of genetically modified yeast that could potentially produce opiates. “It’s not like tomorrow someone’s going to have a fully integrated, one-pot pathway to go from sugar to morphine,” says Oye. “But it’s coming.”
Michael Le Page writes for The New Scientist about Professor Kenneth Oye’s commentary on research indicating that genetically engineered yeasts could be used to produce opiates. Oye provides a number of policy recommendations to prevent illicit opium production, including outlawing the distribution of opiate-making yeast strains.
Professor Kenneth Oye has coauthored a commentary on a paper that demonstrates researchers may be close to being able to engineer morphine from yeast, writes Nicola Twilley for The New Yorker. The authors worry this “could put illicit opiate production into the hands of many more people, at a much smaller scale.”
Donald McNeil writes for The New York Times about a commentary coauthored by Professor Kenneth Oye on advances that could make it possible to produce morphine using genetically modified yeast. Oye argues for “locking up the bioengineered yeast strains and restricting access to the DNA that would let drug cartels reproduce them.”
The Associated Press writes about Professor Kenneth Oye’s commentary on a paper by researchers at U.C. Berkeley that shows how morphine and other painkillers can be manufactured without opium poppies. Oye calls for regulation in order to prevent abuses.
In a piece for the BBC about birdsong, Angela Saini highlights Prof. Shigeru Miyagawa’s research that shows human language could have evolved from birdsong. Miyagawa's theory suggests that "human language relies on two distinct systems, both of which had previously evolved in simpler animals."
Kathleen McKenna of The Boston Globe writes that Professor Alexander Rich, whose research confirmed DNA’s double-helix structure, died at 90 on April 27. Shuguang Zhang, associate director of the Center for Biomedical Engineering at MIT, said that Rich was “warm, wonderful, and open-minded.”
Washington Post reporter Martin Weil writes that Prof. Alexander Rich, who was known for his work with molecular biology, passed away on April 27. Rich’s work on hybridization, the pairing of two single strands of DNA or RNA, “is regarded as integral to creating much of modern biotechnology, with applications in diagnostics, forensics, genealogy and gene sequencing.”