U.S. Customs and Border Protection began enforcing a ban Thursday on shipments from Chinese genomics firm BGI Group and its affiliates BGI Genomics and MGI Tech. The Department of Homeland Security says the companies sourced materials from Xinjiang or worked with regional authorities to recruit and transfer forced labor from Uyghurs and other persecuted groups. China's Commerce Ministry denied the forced-labor claims, calling the move political manipulation and vowing countermeasures.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-10-29
A new HBO film, 'You Can See Everything', covers the weeks before Elizabeth Holmes began her prison sentence in 2023 for defrauding investors in her blood-testing startup Theranos. More than a decade after Theranos collapsed, diagnostics companies developing similar low-volume blood testing devices say they are still dealing with the aftermath of its fraud.
nature.com
· 2026-10-23
Giraffe Bio, a mining biotech startup, has raised a $6.4 million seed round led by Orion Industrial Ventures, with BHP Ventures, Twynam, Air Capital, and Baruch Future Ventures also participating. The company says its mine-specific chemical compounds, produced by engineered microbes in bioreactors, can help mining operations recover up to 5% more copper from heap leaches than conventional methods.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-10-13
Scientists are exploring how yeast could help produce construction materials for future Mars settlements, offering an alternative to transporting heavy machinery and resources from Earth. The approach would use biological processes to convert available materials into usable building components on-site.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-09-25
MIT Technology Review's 2026 list of young innovators highlights Laureen Meroueh, founder of Hertha Metals, who has developed a furnace that converts iron ore directly into refined liquid steel in one step using natural gas instead of coal. The list also spotlights biotech researchers working on vision-restoring gene therapies, brain electrodes, and AI-designed viruses.
technologyreview.com
· 2026-09-11
MIT Technology Review has released its annual list of 35 young innovators, chosen from 550 nominations with help from 44 expert judges. Honorees span biotechnology, AI, computing and robotics, and climate and energy, each showing measurable progress toward their goals. A separate feature in the same issue explores how spiderwebs, rich in trapped environmental DNA, are becoming a valuable tool for tracking biodiversity.
technologyreview.com
· 2026-09-08
Insilico Medicine's AI-designed drug rentosertib, originally developed to treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, produced unexpected reductions in biological age markers during a phase 2a trial. Researchers reanalyzed blood samples from 42 of 71 Chinese trial participants using six computational aging clocks, finding treated patients showed younger predicted ages after 12 weeks compared to placebo recipients.
techspot.com
· 2026-09-08
Eli Lilly has struck a cash deal worth as much as $2.875 billion to acquire Merida Biosciences, a biotechnology company. The acquisition is aimed at strengthening Lilly's immunology drug pipeline.
wsj.com
· 2026-08-31
Chinese biotech firms and health-tech companies are increasingly partnering with low- and middle-income countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America, supplying vaccines, medical equipment financing and digital-health systems. Examples include equipment financing in Kenya and Côte d'Ivoire, pharmaceutical production in Zambia, and vaccine supply to Indonesia and Mexico during the pandemic. These bilateral deals are emerging as traditional multilateral aid budgets shrink worldwide.
nature.com
· 2026-08-25
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