Biotech & Pharma

Biotech and Pharma refer to the commercial sectors that develop, manufacture, and market products based in the biological and chemical sciences. Multinational pharmaceutical companies have invested heavily in biotech as a potential source of new products. While some biotech products and activities are socially and ethically controversial, the biotech industry often opposes public oversight and regulation. Given its impact on public debate and public policy, especially as it blurs the lines between private enterprise and public interest, biotech’s interests must be transparent.

So, CRISPR Doesn’t Cause All Those Off-target Effects After All?

By Katie Hasson | 04.13.2018

Biopolitical Times

In May 2017, Nature Methods published a short, peer-reviewed letter reporting on a study of off-target mutations caused by CRISPR gene-editing in mice. You might recall the (somewhat panicky) headlines along the lines of Gizmodo’s “Crispr May Not Be Nearly as Precise as We Thought,” and the swift drop in CRISPR-related stock prices. There was also immediate pushback from scientists, some with clear financial interests in recuperating CRISPR’s image, who criticized the study’s small sample size,...

Human Genetic Modification

A Flawed Study Shows How Little We Understand Crispr's Effects

By Megan Molteni, Wired | 04.02.2018

Aggregated News

BIOTECH HAS BEEN betting big on Crispr, the gene-editing technique that promises to snip away some of humanity’s worst diseases. But last May, a small case study suggested the much-hyped technology might actually be quite dangerous—and pop went the Crispr bubble, ...

Synthetic Biology