Category: synthetic biology
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Between bricks and blobs: The SpudCell
I have been observing advances in synthetic biology from 2010 onwards when I began to chart how that new discipline constructed a new language for itself ‘brick by metaphorical brick’. That was the time of BioBricks and speculations about building synthetic cells ‘from scratch’. Now, some two decades later, we have gone from ‘bricks’ to…
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Synthetic embryos: Science, communication, clarification
Earlier in the month (June, 2023) I saw some headlines saying things like “Scientists say first synthetic human ’embryo’ created” or “First reported synthetic human embryo sparks ethical concerns, creates questions” or “Synthetic human embryos created for first time using no eggs or sperm”. These headlines appeared soon after an exclusive article on the matter…