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Interviews with synthetic biologists: Guillaume Barbier

Synthetic biology is a set of tools, a way of thinking, the integration of engineering principles into biological sciences, and potentially the biggest opportunity for advances in plant sciences since PCR. Yet many struggle to define it, and fewer still grasp its full potential. Now, four early-career…

Interviews with synthetic biologists: Tobias Erb

Synthetic biology is a set of tools, a way of thinking, the integration of engineering principles into biological sciences, and potentially the biggest opportunity for advances in plant sciences since PCR. Yet many struggle to define it, and fewer still grasp its full potential. Now, four early-career…

Optogenetic manipulation of stomatal kinetics improves carbon assimilation, water use, and growth ($) (Science)

Optogenetics is a biotechnique that uses light-sensitive molecules to regulate cell activity. In plants, stomatal aperture mediates both CO2 uptake for photosynthesis and water loss by transpiration. The carbon-water trade-off control affects water use efficiency (WUE). Here, Papanatsiou et al. studied…

Careers in SynBio: Startup companies

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As part of our continuing series on future careers in plant science I spoke to Dr. Ran Chao, Co-founder of LifeFoundry, a startup company aiming to expedite research and reduce cost in synthetic biology, about making the transition from graduate research to entrepreneur and what he looks for in new…

Interviews with synthetic biologists: Matthew Mattozzi

Synthetic biology is a set of tools, a way of thinking, the integration of engineering principles into biological sciences, and potentially the biggest opportunity for advances in plant sciences since PCR. Yet many struggle to define it, and fewer still grasp its full potential. Now, four early-career…

Interviews with synthetic biologists: Michael Mendez

Synthetic biology is a set of tools, a way of thinking, the integration of engineering principles into biological sciences, and potentially the biggest opportunity for advances in plant sciences since PCR. Yet many struggle to define it, and fewer still grasp its full potential. Now, four early-career…

Interviews with synthetic biologists: Professor Jennifer Nemhauser

Synthetic biology is a set of tools, a way of thinking, the integration of engineering principles into biological sciences, and potentially the biggest opportunity for advances in plant sciences since PCR. Yet many struggle to define it, and fewer still grasp its full potential. In the first of…

Complete biosynthesis of cannabinoids and their unnatural analogues in yeast (Nature) ($)

Cannabis sativa L. produces cannabinoid compounds that interest the medical community for the treatment of symptoms that may be difficult to suppress with common medical treatments. Research on cannabinoids is limited by their low abundance in plant tissue and structurally complex chemical synthesis.…

Site-specific manipulation of Arabidopsis loci using CRISPR-Cas9 SunTag systems (Nature Comms)

Steve Jacobsen’s group has been developing a broad range of synthetic biology tools to interrogate DNA-methylation in plants (see Gallego-Bartolomé et al., 2018, and Gallego-Bartolomé et al., 2019). Among them, they use the CRISPR-Cas9 SunTag system, in which the dCas9 protein is fused to SunTag,…