Like millions of people in the United States last year, Stanley Plotkin and his wife got vaccinated against influenza at the start of the Northern…
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DAVIDE BONAZZI/SALZMAN ART
Category: Science
The enzyme that gives a powerful tool known as a “base editor” the ability to change DNA also has an off-target effect on RNA (above). NOBEASTSOFIERCE SCIENCE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
When researchers first reported 3 years ago that they had created base editors, a version of the powerful genome-editing tool CRISPR, excitement swirled around their distinct powers…
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Health workers at an Ebola treatment center in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which was attacked earlier this year by armed men JOHN WESSELS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
No need to sound the world’s loudest public health alarm bell about the lingering Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), an…
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David Goodsell packs his watercolors of HIV, Ebola, and Zika viruses with realistic details. DAVID GOODSELL (CC-BY-4.0)
HIV, Ebola, and Zika are ugly, nasty viruses. David Goodsell makes them look beautiful, even alluring. And the unusual precision of his depictions is driven…
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The mighty genome editor CRISPR isn’t so powerful in lizards and snakes: Never before has it been used to edit the embryos of these reptiles.…
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A researcher adjusts a microplate containing embryos undergoing gene editing with CRISPR. An expert panel has recommended that all such experiments be submitted to a global registry. MARK SCHIEFELBEIN/AP PHOTO
There’s an “urgent need” to create a transparent global registry that would list all experiments related to human genome editing, an expert committee convened to…
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Timothy Ray Brown’s HIV cure may no longer be unique. DANIEL JACK LYONS
Timothy Ray Brown, aka the “Berlin patient,” the only person to be cured of HIV, may finally have company. A decade after Brown became famous…
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HIV integrates its genome (yellow) into human chromosomes, and cells that indirectly copy that genome as they replicate may complicate cure efforts. DAVID S. GOODSELL/HIVE CENTER
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON—Antiretroviral (ARV) drugs have turned HIV infection from a death sentence to a chronic condition. In most people the drugs routinely tamp HIV levels…
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Conducting research that alters human embryos with the genome editor CRISPR (shown here) would not be banned if a proposed moratorium goes in place, but implanting altered human embryos would. MARK SCHIEFELBEIN/AP PHOTO
A prominent group of 18 scientists and bioethicists from seven countries has called for a global “moratorium” on introducing heritable changes into human sperm,…
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