Kenny Walter

With a new case of measles and whooping cough seemingly in the news every week and vaccination rates declining, researchers are trying new approaches to predict future disease epidemics. A research team from the University of Georgia has developed a new five-year modeling technique to forecast disease reemergence, particularly with preventable childhood infections like measles…

Researchers may have found a way to significantly improve CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology. Biomedical engineers from Duke University have added a short tail to the guide RNA that folds back and binds onto itself to create a lock that can only be undone by the targeted DNA sequence, ultimately improving CRISPR’s accuracy by an average…

A new handheld device that combines CRISPR technology with graphene-based electronic transistors can rapidly detect specific genetic mutations. Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and the Keck Graduate Institute of The Claremont Colleges have created the CRISPR-Chip device that can in just a few minutes diagnose genetic diseases or evaluate the accuracy of other…

While CRISPR Cas9 remains a mainstay in the genomics world, researchers have now found a much smaller protein called CasX that could be used for gene editing. In 2017, a research team from the University of California Berkeley discovered in some of the world’s smallest bacteria a protein similar to Cas9 but substantially smaller, which…

A team from The Ohio State University has created a new way to generate the molecules used to design new types of synthetic drugs. The researchers were able to form reactive intermediates called ketyl radicals that could allow scientists to use catalysts to convert simple molecules into complex structures in one chemical reaction in a…

A research team from the University of Oxford has developed a molecular hopper that is small enough to be able to move single strands of DNA through a protein nanotube. The device works by making and breaking in sequence simple chemical bonds that attach it to a nanoscale track that can be turned on, off…

Natural products made by organisms such as soil-dwelling bacteria may be the key to breakthroughs in drug design. Researchers from the Scripps Research Institute have found that bacteria-derived molecules called thiocarboxylic acids could be useful as ingredients for the next generation of antibiotics. “We use natural products as an inspiration for chemistry, biology and drug…