The recently announced “Cancer moonshot” may be greeted with scepticism: the previous “War on cancer” (1971) was not very successful. However the current plan seems well targeted, with emphasis not only on research investment ...

After clearing many hurdles, gene therapy is now reaching the commercialization stage and can be expected to make a modest but real contribution to treatment in the near future.

A newly established company called Grail and spun out from Illumina promises to develop a “liquid biopsy” test suitable for asymptomatic cancer detection and general screening. While the necessary sensitivity may be ...

Targeted modification of genes (“gene editing”) is made much easier by the recently developed CRISPR-Cas9 system. This has raised alarm about possible uses of this technology for germline modification of the human genome; ...

The synthesis of a minimal bacterial genome comprising only 473 genes is an impressive achievement, yet it is only a step towards a really synthetic genome based on first principles: this set of genes was derived from a ...

The announcement of several deals between the DTC genetics firm 23andMe and Genentech, Pfizer and other corporations reveals the real business model of the company: selling access to sets of characterized patients for ...

Senescent cells are involved in many age-related diseases, and the effects of their elimination by “senolytic” drugs is an active research field. A recent paper describes a convenient murine model of induced senescence and ...