As we stand on the precipice of a scientific revolution, researchers are pushing the boundaries of biology by developing ...

Scientists have already created designer viruses in a lab that can kill dangerous bacteria. The next step is designing and ...

It has taken more than a decade, but scientists have finally reached a major step in the goal to create synthetic life in the lab. According to a new study led by a team from Macquarie University in ...

A new synthetic lifeform, often referred to as “mirror life,” has recently emerged as a potential risk to humankind. With its inherent capacity for rapid evolution and adaptation, this life form could ...

Scientists have created a bacteria with a genetic code more streamlined – and more meddled with – than any other life on Earth. This bacteria, a synthetic Escherichia coli called Syn57, has been ...

We could see a mass extinction event, an existential threat to multicellular life as we know it. Effective biocontainment, the researchers argue, would be incredibly difficult. If you have the time, ...

After more than a decade of work, researchers have reached a major milestone in their efforts to re-engineer life in the lab, putting together the final chromosome in a synthetic yeast (Saccharomyces ...

There's a new wrinkle in the argument over patenting life: can you patent synthetic life? Scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute have applied for a U.S. patent on a minimal bacterial genome that ...

SAN FRANCISCO — Synthetic organisms engineered to use carbon dioxide as a raw material could help humans settle Mars one day, a prominent biologist says. Man-made, CO2-munching lifeforms are already ...

NEW YORK — Life is a DNA software system, genome scientist Craig Venter told a packed auditorium here at the American Museum of Natural History Monday night (Oct. 21). In his talk, Venter offered a ...