De Novo

More on EBV and multiple sclerosis (a topic I’ve written about before).

I’ve written previously about gene drive technology, which allows gene editing of entire species.

I recently read a rather unusual article, discussing the possibility that certain humans may be able to conceive and bear children completely on their own.

Forward-Looking Statements: This press release contains forward-looking statements, wild speculation, and outright lies.1 BOSTON, MA and UNDISCLOSED LOCATION – APRIL 1 2026 Read more

This story begins in 1997, the same year I was born.

I haven’t had much time for blogging these days, but I wanted to highlight three cool studies that came out recently, studying the genetics of meiosis, Epstein-Barr virus, and lifespan.

As we get closer to being able to grow human eggs from stem cells, it’s important to be sure that the eggs are high quality and safe enough to use for reproduction.1 So, let’s discuss: what does an egg need to have in order to develop into a healthy baby…

Eggs are expensive, sperm are cheap.

I’d like to highlight some biological news that recently came out: Reprogenetics ImputePGTA from Herasight: estimating an embryo’s genotype based on very low coverage sequencing (as low as 70,000 reads, or ∼0.002x coverage!)

A few days ago, I got a call at 2:39 a.m.

Recently, a paper in Nature on building neural networks with DNA-based switches caught my attention.1 The authors, Kevin Cherry and Lulu Qian, developed an interesting system that uses DNA base pairing to implement a trainable neural network.

Nearly two years ago I wrote about gene drives and how political issues, not technical ones, were the main barriers to implementation: Target Malaria was taking a commendable approach of engaging with local communities and government officials to try to b…

Gene drives were in the news again recently, and readers of this blog will know that I’m strongly in favor of using them to end malaria, which kills over 600,000 people per year.

Caviar is considered a luxury food, fetching up to hundreds of dollars per ounce for the most exclusive grades.

At the end of May, I flew to Berkeley to attend LessOnline, an annual meetup of bloggers and other personalities associated with lesswrong.com and the Rationalist subculture.

Recently I got very excited about using Anki to help me memorize things about biology.

Update: AI-generated Anki cards are risky and not to be trusted Last weekend I went to the LessOnline meetup in Berkeley.

Malaria is one of humanity’s biggest foes, killing an average of 600,000 people per year (mostly African children).

My review of The Nobel Duel is out today in Asimov Press: Asimov Press The Nobel Duel We’ve begun shipping out orders for the first commercial book written and sold in both natural language and DNA.

This story begins in May 2007.

Note: I originally published this post in July 2022, but I removed it after being asked to do so by biosecurity experts who viewed it as an infohazard.