Synthetic biology applies engineering approach to biological components
"We're going to be able to write DNA. What do we want to say?" Professor Drew Endy of biological engineering asked this question as he...
NEWS INDEX
Dog genome assembled
MIT researchers and colleagues have released the first draft of the dog genome sequence, which could aid the characterization of dog diseases. The draft has...
Bioengineers create a new approach to tissue engineering
Bioengineers report a new approach to creating three-dimensional samples of human tissue that could push researchers closer to their ultimate goal: tissue engineering for therapeutic...
Bioengineered nanomachines
Nano-circuit fabrication using a living bacterium? Science fiction seems to have met with reality with the news that researchers at the NASA Ames Research Center,...
RNA pioneer looks back
DNA makes RNA makes protein. In retrospect, it couldn't be clearer. But to Alexander Rich and the other pioneers trying to figure out RNA structure...
Biorubber opens doors for tissue engineering
Scientists from around the world have been contacting an MIT laboratory for samples of "biorubber," a new material with myriad applications including engineered lungs, heart...
Viruses put to work making high-tech materials
Viruses subvert their hosts to pump out masses of new viruses. In an unusual twist, a researcher reports in the May 3 issue of Science...
Researchers tailors cell jackets to inhibit cancer growth
MIT scientists wielding molecular scissors have shown for the first time that the sugar jackets of cancer cells can be tailored to inhibit tumors. The...
Researchers control biological materials with radio waves
It's not exactly "ET, phone home," but researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology report in the January 10 issue of Nature that they can...
Bioengineering programmes rise to meet the challenge of a young science
When biology met engineering, they created a new field for scientists who don't want to be hedged into one discipline. Scanning the c.v. of...
The Artificial Womb Is Born
The artificial womb exists. In Tokyo, researchers have developed a technique called EUFI -- extrauterine fetal incubation. They have taken goat fetuses, threaded catheters through...