BioCoder #12

Welcome to BioCoder

Mike Loukides

It’s been an exciting few months for biologists. The first stage of the battle for CRISPR-Cas9 patents has come to an end, though it will certainly continue in the appeals courts, and in courts outside the US. How much of an effect does this decision have? I don’t know. When I wear my cynic’s hat, all it does is change whether entrepreneurs pay rent to Harvard or Berkeley. But conflict and uncertainty are never helpful, and the end of that conflict is now one step closer to being in sight. New York’s Genspace has had several hundred students attending workshops and classes about CRISPR, and I’d assume that other community labs have seen similar interest. It would be tragic if all that creativity went down the drain in a swirl of legal fees and patent litigation.

More recently, we’ve read about the Sc2.0 project. Sc2.0 is synthesizing a complete yeast genome: at this point, they have synthesized six out of a total of 16 chromosomes, and installed them in functioning cells. The yeast genome seems to be very tolerant to editing: you can evidently change a lot of things without harming the yeast itself. It looks like they will have synthesized the complete genome by the end of 2017.

Yeasts are the basis for fermentation; bakers have been using this particular yeast in bread for thousands of years. If programmed correctly, yeasts can make much more than bread and beer. We’re already using yeasts to manufacture vaccines, fragrances and flavors, and ...