Quest for Synthetic Organisms Calls for New Rules, Critics Say
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Custom-made microbes could produce drugs, eat pollution, generate fuel -- or create an unpredictable environmental nightmare. As the field advances, some watchdogs call for increased regulation.
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PORTLAND, Ore.  -- Pollen from genetically engineered grass floated more than 12 miles from experimental plots and bred with conventional plants, raising concerns that the biotechnology industry can't control the "gene flow" of its creations...
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Carolus Linnaeus' system for assigning names to Earth's living creatures holds up over time, but in the age of DNA, some scientists hunger for a more modern approach.
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An influential World Health Organization committee is sending shock waves through the scientific community with its recommendation that researchers be permitted to conduct genetic-engineering experiments with the smallpox virus.
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The most detailed probe yet into the workings of the human genome has led scientists to conclude that a cornerstone concept about the chemical code for life is badly flawed.
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A new initiative will work on cell-based toxicity tests for chemicals.
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Coming soon to a jungle near you --  mosquitoes genetically engineered so they cannot give people  malaria. But this time scientists want to do it right.
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Advisers to the World Health Organization (news - web sites) have pressed the body to allow a few scientists to genetically modify the
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A group of scientists wants to revise Darwin's theory of evolution to better explain jumps in biological complexity, like that from single-celled to multicellular organisms.
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Researchers at Rockefeller University make small synthetic vesicles that resemble a crude kind of biological cell.
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WALNUT CREEK, CA--The first genetic instruction manual of a diatom, from a family of microscopic ocean algae that are among the Earth&#39;s most prolific carbon dioxide assimilators, has yielded important insights on how the creature uses nitrogen, fats, and
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Synthetic biology aims to create new creatures by establishing a standardized set of DNA parts and then installing them like interchangeable electrical components in stripped-down breadboard organisms.
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Is a man-made microorganism patentable? The J. Craig Venter Institute is about to find out, even as ETC Group challenges the patent bid.
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New methods to reprogram adult cells could create novel models of disease.
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Hybrid animals allow scientists to watch how human cells and organs mature inside the bodies of other animals but some question the ethics of such procedures.
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Scientists have created a synthetic drug which could offer new hope in the fight against malaria.
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The first synthetic genome is pieced together by scientists, the next-to-last step in creating man-made life.