Made-to-order DNA…

…is about to get a lot easier to create:

Installing one of those prefab, snap-together wood-flooring kits is a lot easier than shaping and sanding rough planks. Adapting a similar construction strategy, a biotech startup called Codon Devices, based in Cambridge, MA, aims to streamline genetic engineering. It makes made-to-order DNA strands, freeing scientists from the finicky work it takes to put together a complicated piece of DNA the old-fashioned way.

That capability could soon change the face of molecular biology. As it becomes cheaper and cheaper to create large chunks of genetic material from scratch, scientists will be able to make ever more complex biological creations. “In the next few years, we’ll probably see people engineering cells to do drug delivery or creating cellular sensors,” says George Church, a professor of genetics at Harvard and one of Codon’s founders. “Maybe even cells that make inorganic objects of interest, like nanostructures.”

(Via KurzweilAI.net.)

Permanent link to this article: https://edwardwillett.com/2007/04/made-to-order-dna/

1 comment

    • M. D. Benoit on April 10, 2007 at 12:01 pm
    • Reply

    And much closer to genetic modification using nanomachines.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Easy AdSense Pro by Unreal