Marking the Francis Crick Institute's tenth anniversary and her first year as chief executive, the author reflects on how biology has transformed since the 1980s, citing advances in single-cell and spatial biology, genome editing, and computational tools. She highlights artificial intelligence, including Google DeepMind's AlphaFold, as a force reshaping scientific discovery by making complex data and protein structure predictions widely accessible.
nature.com
· 2026-11-11
Researchers, including Ying Zhang at Wuhan University and Shannon Miller at Scripps Research, are developing a range of genome-editing technologies that go beyond standard CRISPR-Cas9, some building on it and others operating independently. These newer methods are designed to insert or replace larger stretches of DNA, a task CRISPR-Cas9 struggles with, though the field remains in early stages.
nature.com
· 2026-09-28
Two independent research teams, led by Bower and colleagues and by Jerabek and colleagues, applied base editing—a precise form of genome editing—directly to human embryos to study how a specific gene shapes the earliest stages of development. Their experiments, published in Nature, show how embryos respond when particular DNA letters are altered, offering a clearer picture of this critical developmental window.
nature.com
· 2026-09-09
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