Can biology move at internet speed? Is there a Moores Law for cells? What about the problems that cannot be solved by information technology alone?IndieBio, a new biotech accelerator based in both San Francisco and Cork, Ireland, is proposing to answer these questions and more. What a lot of people seemed to have missed is that the pace of innovation in life sciences is accelerating, sequencing technologies alone are exceeding the pace of Moores law, says Ron Shigeta, the chief scientific officer of IndieBio. Just as the falling prices and increasing speed of computer chips has made the present mobile device revolution possible, he sees the sameand morehappening in the biotech. If biotechs cost curve is exceeding Moores law in at least some areas, Shigeta wonders, how much quicker are we going to see a revolution in applied biotechnologies and what new technologies will we be able to develop within a couple of years which would could only dream of a decade ago? At the same time, biological innovation promises to be more controversial than the purely silicon-based kindperhaps unfairly. The problem with biologyand its promiseis that we identify with it so strongly. Make a plant that glows by adding … Continue reading →

By Ryan Bethencourt The human body functions, with all of its flora and fauna, in magnificent ways that we are only now starting to understand. Human cells are outnumbered some three to 10 times by bacterial cells in and on our bodies. And its estimated that at least 11 percent of the human genome is viral in origin. We are the original genetically modified organisms. Since the beginning of civilization humans have altered our environment and its biology to allow our civilization to thrivefrom domesticating plants and animals to building shelter and tools from living organisms. And biology has recently found solutions we didnt imagine were possible, such as the recent discovery that plants chlorophyll molecules act at the quantum mechanical level to maximize energy harvested from the sun. Yet, when it comes to understanding biotechnology innovations, the general public is sadly misinformed about the science. Unfounded fears have prompted the European Union to placed stringent controls on the use and growth of GMO crops, and many EU countries require permits to do basic molecular biology and genetic engineering. (Image via Shutterstock) In the U.S., weve had a surge of anti-vaccine sentiment (which apparently led to the recent outbreak of … Continue reading →

Deep in the heart of synthetic biology are the proteins that make it tick. Protein engineering is the crucial pulse of the booming, relatively new scientific discipline. Scientists grow, harvest, and reprogram proteins to become new drug therapeutics, environmentally friendly fuels, and vaccines. Producing proteins quickly and in large quantities has been and remains a major challenge in the field. "There's an increasing demand for cost-effective, scalable, highly yielding systems to make proteins," said Northwestern University synthetic biologist Michael Jewett. "We want to address this need, which could help lead to new targeted therapies that attack disease or enzymes that make sustainable chemicals." An assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering, Jewett and his team have pioneered a new protein production method that is faster and cheaper than ever before, making synthetic biology research more accessible for laboratories everywhere--even in high schools. Supported by DARPA and the Army Research Office, the research is published in the March 2015 issue of Scientific Reports. Yong Chan Kwon, a postdoctoral associate in Jewett's lab, coauthored the paper. Jewett's research addresses a technological gap in cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS), a method of producing proteins without using living, intact … Continue reading →

UC Riverside proposes a Faculty Learning Community model to boost faculty interest in undergraduate biology teaching, increase number of STEM degrees By Iqbal Pittalwala on February 17, 2015 Freshmen perform experiments in the Neil A. Campbell Science Learning Laboratory at UC Riverside.Photo credit: James Burnette III, UC Riverside. RIVERSIDE, Calif. Sadly, fewer than 40 percent of students who enter college intending to major in a science, technology engineering and technology (STEM) field complete a STEM degree. Equally discouraging is that women and underrepresented minorities about 70 percent of college students receive only 45 percent of STEM degrees. But if STEM majors could be increased from 40 percent to just 50 percent, it has potential to generate about 750,000 additional STEM degrees needed to meet the workforce demands over the next decade. To help achieve this goal, Susan R. Wessler, a distinguished professor of genetics at the University of California, Riverside, has teamed up with John Matsui at UC Berkeley, Joel Rothman at UC Santa Barbara and Paul Koch at UC Santa Cruz to develop an interconnected Faculty Learning Community, with chapters at each of the four campuses, to allow faculty to share proven, successful methods that improve undergraduate biology instruction. … Continue reading →

Dr Richard Spencer choreographs his college biology lessons to music The teacher at Middlesbrough College in Teeside says it 'inspires' pupils He uses coloured bibs to represent chromosomes and DNA neucleotides He also writes science lyrics to famous songs like Blame it on the Boogie He has now been nominated for the $1m (650,000) Global Teaching Prize By Richard Gray for MailOnline Published: 13:27 EST, 13 February 2015 | Updated: 14:36 EST, 13 February 2015 First there was the Periodic Table song, then the Cern rap and now the DNA Boogie. A science teacher from the Midlands has developed a rather unorthodox way of teaching his students about biology - through the medium of dance. Dr Richard Spencer, a science teacher at Middlesbrough College, in Teeside, choreographed his lessons to music in an attempt to help his pupils remember how a cell works. Scroll down for more video of Dr Spencer dancing Teacher uses 'DNA Boogie' dance to teach students biology Among the dances he has created is the DNA Boogie - in which he uses dance moves to represent the molecules chemical structure - and the Meiosis Square Dance, about how chromosomes are shared between cells as tissue grow. … Continue reading →