Genetically Modified News

January 14, 2025

Top Headlines

Durian Helps Rice Plants Thrive in Salty Soil

Dec. 5, 2024 — Extreme weather and pollution have increased the salt content in some soil, making growing conditions harsh for salt-sensitive crops like rice. Now, researchers detail a possible solution that doesn't require genetic modification to make rice plants ...

Mothers Massively Change Their Intestines During Pregnancy and Nursing

Dec. 5, 2024 — When women are pregnant and nurse their babies, their bodies change and various organs, such as the breasts or the immune system, are adapted to ensure the health of both mother and child. This happens throughout evolution in all mammals. An ...

An Innovative Antibiotic for Drug-Resistant Bacteria

Nov. 20, 2024 — Antibacterial drugs are important for treating infections. But increasingly, bacterial resistance to current drugs -- so they don't work well, or even at all -- means new ones are urgently needed. Researchers have demonstrated a potential ...

Probiotic Delivers Anticancer Drug to the Gut

Nov. 20, 2024 — Researchers shrink gastrointestinal tumors in mice using a yeast probiotic to deliver immunotherapy to the gut, offering a potentially novel strategy to target hard-to-reach gut ...

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CAST Mouse Model: A Crucial Tool for Future COVID-19 Outbreaks

Dec. 6, 2024 — Researchers have identified the first mouse strain that is susceptible to severe COVID-19 without the need for genetic modification. This development marks a pivotal step forward in infectious ...

Chemical Replacement of TNT Explosive More Harmful to Plants, Study Shows

Nov. 28, 2024 — The increased use of a chemical compound to replace TNT in explosive devices has a damaging and long lasting effect on plants, new research has ...

Generation of Rat Offspring from Ovarian Oocytes by Cross-Species Transplantation

Nov. 15, 2024 — Attempts to obtain eggs and offspring using oocytes in ovary have been made for keeping desirable traits in livestock, preserving human fertility, ...

Not the Usual Suspects: Novel Genetic Basis of Pest Resistance to Biotech Crops

Nov. 4, 2024 — Researchers used genomics to investigate the genetic changes causing resistance to transgenic crops in field populations of the corn earworm, also ...

With 'Electro-Agriculture,' Plants Can Produce Food in the Dark and With 94% Less Land, Bioengineers Say

Oct. 23, 2024 — Photosynthesis, the chemical reaction that enables almost all life on Earth, is extremely inefficient at capturing energy -- only around 1% of light ...

Finding Could Help Turn Trees Into Affordable, Greener Industrial Chemicals

Oct. 18, 2024 — Specific molecular property of lignin in trees determines difficulty of using microbial fermentation to turn trees and other plants into industrial ...

Bacterial Vaccine Shows Promise as Cancer Immunotherapy

Oct. 16, 2024 — Researchers have engineered bacteria as personalized cancer vaccines that activate the immune system to specifically seek out and destroy cancer ...

Cord Blood Cells Can Build a Better Human Immune System Into Mice

Oct. 11, 2024 — Researchers have developed a new method to recreate a robust and functional human immune system in mice using mononuclear cells from the cord blood. This new kind of mice, that count with most of the ...

Study Probes How Eating Less Can Extend Lifespan

Oct. 9, 2024 — Researchers tracked the health of nearly one thousand mice on a variety of diets to see if these diets would extend the mice's lifespan. The study was designed to ensure that each mouse was ...

Monoclonal Antibodies Offer Hope for Tackling Antimicrobial Resistance

Sep. 16, 2024 — Monoclonal antibodies -- treatments developed by cloning a cell that makes an antibody -- could help provide an answer to the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance, say ...

Century-Old Experiment Secures Beer and Whiskey's Future

Sep. 11, 2024 — Thanks to an experiment started before the Great Depression, researchers have pinpointed the genes behind the remarkable adaptability of barley, a key ingredient in beer and whiskey. These insights ...

How the Oceans' Most Abundant Bacteria Impact Global Nutrient Flows

Sep. 11, 2024 — If you were to collect all the organisms from the ocean surface down to 200 meters, you'd find that SAR11 bacteria, though invisible to the naked eye, would make up a fifth of the total biomass. ...

Like Father, Like Daughter

Sep. 10, 2024 — When they become fathers, men who have an unhealthy, high-cholesterol diet can cause increased risk of cardiovascular disease, or CVD, in their daughters, a mouse study has ...

Towards a Better Understanding of Epigenetics and Dynamic Gene Silencing and Reactivation

Sep. 10, 2024 — Epigenetics, the dynamic regulation of genetic expression, involves complex molecular mechanisms. While the process of gene silencing by methylating the H3K27 position in histones is understood, not ...

Upcycling Excess Carbon Dioxide With Tiny Microbes

Aug. 30, 2024 — While some microbes can make people sick or spoil food, others are critical for survival. These tiny organisms can also be engineered to make specific molecules. Researchers have rewired one such ...

Researchers Uncover the Secrets of 'Plant Puberty'

Aug. 20, 2024 — Researchers have identified the genetic changes linked to why plants go through a developmental change similar to 'puberty' at different rates, a discovery which could lead to better crop ...

Researchers Call for Genetically Diverse Models to Drive Innovation in Drug Discovery

Aug. 14, 2024 — Researchers unveiled an approach to drug discovery that could revolutionize how we understand and treat diseases. Their commentary explains the limitations of studies using traditional mouse models ...

Reduce, Reuse, 'Re-Fly-Cle'

Aug. 13, 2024 — Black soldier flies are now commercially used to consume organic waste -- but genetic modifications proposed by bioscientists could see the insects digesting a wider variety of refuse, while also ...

New Genetically Engineered Wood Can Store Carbon and Reduce Emissions

Aug. 12, 2024 — Researchers genetically modified poplar trees to produce high-performance, structural wood without the use of chemicals or energy intensive ...

Researchers Are Closing in on a Mouse Model for Late-Onset Alzheimer's

July 24, 2024 — Researchers are working to create the first strain of mice that's genetically susceptible to late-onset Alzheimer's, with potentially transformative implications for dementia ...

Research Sheds Light on the Role of PTPRK in Tissue Repair and Cancer

July 24, 2024 — New research has advanced our knowledge of multiple roles for PTPRK, a receptor tyrosine phosphatase linked to the regulation of cell-cell adhesion, growth factor signalling and tumor suppression. ...

Genome Study Informs Restoration of American Chestnut Tree

July 22, 2024 — Researchers use genomes to help restore the American chestnut population and adjust species breeding to the changing ...

Unlocking the Mystery of Preexisting Drug Resistance: New Study Sheds Light on Cancer Evolution

July 15, 2024 — The evolution of resistance to diseases, from infectious illnesses to cancers, poses a formidable challenge. Despite the expectation that resistance-conferring mutations would dwindle in the absence ...

Building a Roadmap to Bioengineer Plants That Produce Their Own Nitrogen Fertilizer

July 15, 2024 — Nitrogen fertilizers make it possible to feed the world's growing population, but they are also costly adn harm ecosystems. However, a few plants have evolved the ability to acquire their own ...

Big Gain in Battle Against Harmful Bacteria

July 10, 2024 — An unexpected find has enabled important progress to be made in the battle against harmful ...

Unlocking the World of Bacteria

June 26, 2024 — Bacteria possess unique traits with great potential for benefiting society. However, current genetic engineering methods to harness these advantages are limited to a small fraction of bacterial ...

Can Engineered Plants Help Make Baby Formula as Nutritious as Breast Milk?

June 13, 2024 — New research may help close the nutrition gap between infant formula and human breast milk. The study shows how plants can be programmed to produce a diverse array of beneficial sugars found in human ...

Trout in Mine-Polluted Rivers Are Genetically 'Isolated'

May 30, 2024 — Trout living in rivers polluted by metal from old mines across the British Isles are genetically 'isolated' from other trout, new research ...

Researchers Expose New Symbiosis Origin Theories, Identify Experimental Systems for Plant Life

May 29, 2024 — Research work on symbiosis -- a mutually beneficial relationship between living organisms -- is pushing back against the newer theory of a 'single-origin' of root nodule symbiosis (RNS) -- ...

Escaped GMO Canola Plants Persist Long-Term, but May Be Losing Their Extra Genes

May 22, 2024 — Populations of canola plants genetically engineered to be resistant to herbicides can survive outside of farms, but may be gradually losing their engineered genes, reports a new ...