Biotechnology

A report in Cell takes single-cell CRISPR screens to genome scale and demonstrates how the transcriptional phenotypes can be used to resolve gene functions.

Nanoneedle start-ups are traversing the biotech valley of death — from fundamental university research into commercial development in advanced therapeutics and diagnostics. How can academics make the most of this opportunity?

Fruit flies injected with magnetic nanoparticles and genetically modified to sensitize neural circuits to the rate of change in temperature have enabled subsecond behavioural responses to magnetic stimuli and multi-channel magnetic control.

Evidence for at least one protein product from 80% of all mouse genes is reported in a comprehensive proteomic analysis of 41 adult mouse tissues. Comparison of tissue profiles between mouse and human suggests that the fundamental biology of this important model organism is even more different from our own than we thought.

The use of association studies to identify candidate genes for complex biological traits in plants has been challenging due to a reliance on single reference genomes, leading to missing heritability. Graphical pangenomes and the identification of causal variants help overcome this and provide an important advance for crop breeding.