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Biofilms Beware

Jul 04, 2007

Biofilms, or bacterial communities seemingly glued together, have become a major problem in medicine as conventional antibiotics can't break them apart to kill the bacteria. This Tech Review article describes synthetic biology work from Boston University researchers, led by Jim Collins, who engineered viruses to attack the biofilm -- killing the bacteria within and dissolving the strong bonds holding the whole mess together. You can also check out the paper in PNAS here.

Breaking News
The Scan

Comfort of Home

The Guardian reports that AstraZeneca is to run more clinical trials from people's homes with the aim of increasing participant diversity.

Keep Under Control

Genetic technologies are among the tools suggested to manage invasive species and feral animals in Australia, Newsweek says.

Just Make It

The New York Times writes that there is increased interest in applying gene synthesis to even more applications.

Nucleic Acids Research Papers on OncoDB, mBodyMap, Genomicus

In Nucleic Acids Research this week: database to analyze large cancer datasets, human body microbe database, and more.