Best known globally for its aspirin and locally for its life-saving hemophilia treatments, drug giant Bayer is firming up plans to lead one of biotech's hottest areas with a pioneering new cell therapy manufacturing facility on its fast-changing Berkeley campus.
The moves come as Bayer seeks approval from Berkeley leaders for a new 30-year master plan that would allow the Germany-based company to build 1 million square feet of production, research and office space and add some 1,000 employees over that period.
At the forefront of Bayer's big plans are cell therapies, which employ genetically engineered cells to fix blood cancers and potentially more diseases, and one-shot-and-done gene therapies that insert a correct copy of a gene to replace a defective, disease-causing gene.
Researchers have created what they say may count as the first synthetic cell, and have started a public benefit corporation to share the technology with other scientists. It’s a piece of science that generates as many questions as answers. They...
Jennifer Doudna, Ph.D., the Nobel Laureate best known for co-inventing the CRISPR system that has become the foundation for gene editing, is dipping her toes into a new, buzzy field: AI-powered protein design.
By Emily Baumgaetner Nunn, The New York Times | 07.20.2026
Aggregated News
The National Institutes of Health recently announced a remarkable achievement: the world’s largest database of human genomes, a repository of information that the agency says will help usher in a new era in personalized medicine.
About 100,000 babies were born through in vitro fertilization in 2024, according to the most recent U.S. data. But IVF commonly involves trying to create multiple embryos, because success is never guaranteed. If unused, those embryos can be frozen...
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