genetic engineering

NovaXS Biotech wants to make injection therapy needle-free

A startup spawned from a lab at the University of California, Berkeley has won investor support to work on its patented needle-free injector, which it hopes can make therapies that traditionally requi

Phytoform plants $5.7M into climate-resistant crop technology

The success of CRISPR technology in agriculture has been well documented as a way to manipulate plant genomes to make them more pest and climate resistant and grow more consistent products.

Should we care about the lives of our kids’ kids’ kids’ kids’?

We live during a time of live, real-time culture. Telecasts, spontaneous tweetstorms, on-the-scene streams, rapid-response analysis, war rooms, Clubhouses, vlogging. We have to interact with the here

Hear top VCs Albert Wegner, Jenny Rooke, and Shilpi Kumar talk green bets at the Extreme Tech Challenge finals

This year, TechCrunch is proudly hosting the Extreme Tech Challenge Global Finals on July 22. The event is among the world’s largest purpose-driven startup competitions that are aiming to solve

New clinical trial data from Locus Biosciences shows promise in CRISPR-Cas3 technology

Antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest potential threats to global health today. But Locus Biosciences is hoping that their crPhage technology might provide a new solution. Based in North Carolin

Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna shares her perspective on COVID-19 and CRISPR

CRISPR co-discoverer Jennifer Doudna was named a Nobel laureate in Chemistry today, sharing the honour with Emmanuelle Charpentier. We had the opportunity to speak to Doudna recently at our TechCrunch

Scribe Therapeutics launches a platform for engineering CRISPR-based therapeutics

A new company called Scribe Therapeutics founded by two former members of CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna’s UC Berkeley genetics lab (alongside Doudna herself) launched on Tuesday, debuting a pla

Mammoth Biosciences lands exclusive license to new CRISPR proteins that could boost gene editing precision

CRISPR pioneer Mammoth Biosciences has secured an exclusive license to a new family of CRISPR proteins. Obtained from UC Berkeley, the license covers R&D and commercialization across all potential

Mammoth Biosciences’s CRISPR-based COVID-19 test receives NIH funding through RADx program

CRISPR tech startup Mammoth Biosciences is among the companies that revealed backing from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) program on Friday. Mammoth re

Emerging from stealth, Octant is bringing the tools of synthetic biology to large scale drug discovery

Octant, a company backed by Andreessen Horowitz just now unveiling itself publicly to the world, is using the tools of synthetic biology to buck the latest trends in drug discovery. As the pharmaceuti

$125 million for Inscripta may usher in the next wave of genetic engineering

In these waning days of the second decade of the twenty-first century, technologists and investors are beginning to lay the foundations for new, truly transformational technologies that have the poten

You’ve heard of CRISPR, now meet its newer, savvier cousin CRISPR Prime

CRISPR, the revolutionary ability to snip out and alter genes with scissor-like precision, has exploded in popularity over the last few years and is generally seen as the standalone wizard of modern g

Frontier technologies are moving closer to the center of venture investment

As the technologies that were once considered science fiction become the purview of science, the venture capital firms that were once investing at the industry’s fringes are now finding themselv

The World Health Organization is setting up rules and oversight for human gene editing

Yesterday, the World Health Organization wrapped up its first meeting of a new advisory committee set up to create global governance and oversight standards for human gene editing. The committee was h

Up to $818 million deal between J&J and Locus Biosciences points to a new path for CRISPR therapies

The up to $818 million deal between Locus Biosciences and Janssen Pharmaceuticals (a division of Johnson & Johnson) that was announced yesterday points toward a new path for CRISPR gene editing te

Synthego raises $110 million to make gene editing technologies more accessible

Paul Dabrowski, the chief executive officer of Synthego, which provides genetically engineered cells to scientists and researchers, worries about a future where access to the genetic technologies that

CRISPR’d pigs could produce low-fat bacon

We truly live in amazing times. Chinese scientists just made skinnier pigs using CRISPR-Cas9 technology. Do you know what this means? Low-fat bacon! I know, I know, for some, bacon without the fat doe

Synthego’s genetic toolkit aims to make CRISPR more accessible

We hear a lot about the potential and implications of the gene-editing technique CRISPR, but it's not like just anyone can open up an app, pick a gene they don't like, and build the molecular machiner