Author / Wolfgang
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mRNA Vaccines: where they come from and where they are going
The awarding of the Nobel Prizes in Stockholm is an occasion to revisit the award to Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissmann for the development of mRNA vaccines – we have previously reported on this here.Wolfgang Kerler from 1E9 had invited me for an interview in which we once again tried to discuss the achievements of…
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Synthetic Biology – Further Reading
This list of links and references accompanies a talk on synthetic biology that was first presented in November 2023 and should encourage further reading.The current talk is aimed at an audience with some background in molecular biology but may be adjusted upon request for a more general audience.The list and the talk will be updated…
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How to train your plant
Genes for resistance against plant pathogens can be transferred from one species to another. Huge losses in agricultural yield can be thus avoided and the use of pesticides reduced.. An example are genes from the sunflower that can make soy beans resistant against soy bean rust.
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Eco-Gene Technology: the American Chestnut
SummaryGenetic engineering can be very useful not only in agriculture, medicine and other fields. The example of the American chestnut shows that it can also be very helpful in ecology. Genetic engineering is certainly not a “silver bullet” to solve all problems. TASF and ESF pursue all possible avenues simultaneously in order to find the…
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Gene editing in humans – what should/could/may be done?
Viewpoint on an article in Aljazeera (April 11th, 2023) on CRISPR The cover picture shows Victoria Gray who was treated in 2019 as the first patient in the US with a CRISPR-Cas based therapy against sickle cell disease (SCD). She participated in a clinical trial and was treated with her own “repaired” blood stem cells.…
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A world without men
Does evolution still happen today? In 1997 a German aquarist was very surprised: he had a single marble crayfish (Procambarus fallax) in his tank. It was a female crayfish, which suddenly started to reproduce. After three to six weeks, about 120 young animals develop from the eggs. This was nice at first, but became annoying…
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CRISPR in the kitchen?
This article puts Jo (formerly Josiah) Zayner back in the spotlight. Zayner had already caused a stir in Germany in 2017 when the first school experiment on CRISPR-Cas was distributed by his company “The Odin”. With great interest, our association “Science Bridge” had tested the kit and came to the simple conclusion that it was…
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Not quite a normal harvest (2)
Please note the Addendum from April 4th, 2023 at the very end of the article! An interview with Ingo Potrykus, one of the inventors of Golden Rice In 1992, Ingo Potrykus together with Peter Beyer, started to develop “Golden Rice,” a variant enriched with the vitamin A precursor ß-carotene to help alleviate malnutrition, especially in…
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Not quite a normal harvest (1)
The background to the “Golden Rice” project It has become very quiet around the “Golden Rice” in recent years. Everything seemed to have been said and the work “behind the scenes” found little public interest. But now it has reappeared in the media – for example in a very good article in the “Republik ”…
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Mutants
Mutants are usually not as spectacular as Spiderman or the Hulk. They are much more ordinary. Every human has about 30 to 60 new mutations, most of which are not even noticed. However, many mutations are lethal. In humans, it is believed that 50% of fertilized eggs or very early embryos are spontaneously aborted because…
