Genetically Modified News

June 13, 2025

Top Headlines

'Future-Proofing' Crops Will Require Urgent, Consistent Effort

May 29, 2025 — A professor of crop sciences and of plant biology describes research efforts to 'future-proof' the crops that are essential to feeding a hungry world in a changing climate. Long, who has spent decades studying the process of photosynthesis and ...

Living Libraries Could Save Our Food

May 29, 2025 — Scientists have pioneered a new way to breed climate-resilient crops faster by combining plant genebank data with climate and DNA analysis. The method, tested on sorghum, could speed up global efforts to secure food supplies in a changing ...

Too Much of a Good Thing: Consequences of Overplanting Bt Corn in the US

May 28, 2025 — A new study shows that planting too much genetically modified corn designed to fight off a tough insect -- the corn rootworm -- especially in the eastern U.S. Corn Belt states may be causing more harm than ...

Intestinal Bacteria Influence Aging of Blood Vessels

May 28, 2025 — The aging of the innermost cell layer of blood vessels leads to cardiovascular diseases. Researchers have now shown for the first time that intestinal bacteria and their metabolites contribute directly to vascular aging. As people age, the bacterial ...

Designer Microbe Shows Promise for Reducing Mercury Absorption from Seafood

May 1, 2025 — Scientists inserted DNA-encoding methylmercury detoxification enzymes into the genome of an abundant human gut bacterium. The engineered bacterium detoxified methylmercury in the gut of mice and dramatically reduced the amount that reached other ...

No More Copy-Pasting: DNA Base Editing for Better Lactobacillus Strains

Apr. 24, 2025 — A team was able to edit the DNA of Lactobacillus strains directly without a template from other organisms. This technique is indistinguishable from natural variation and enabled the researchers to create a strain that doesn't produce ...

Engineered Microglia Show Promise for Treating Alzheimer's and Other Brain Diseases

Apr. 21, 2025 — A new way to deliver disease-fighting proteins throughout the brain may improve the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and other neurological disorders, according to scientists. By engineering human ...

Engineered Bacteria Emit Signals That Can Be Spotted from a Distance

Apr. 11, 2025 — Engineers have made bacteria to produce hyperspectral signals that can be detected as far as 90 meters away. Their work could lead to the development of bacterial sensors for agricultural and other applications, which could be monitored by drones or ...

Unlocking the Genetic Basis of Animal Behavior Using Fruit Flies

Apr. 14, 2025 — Understanding how genes influence complex behaviors remains one of biology's most fascinating challenges. Now, however, in a recent study, researchers have compiled a comprehensive dataset documenting the behaviors of over 30,000 fruit flies across ...

Engineering Smart Delivery for Gene Editors

Apr. 9, 2025 — A research team has developed an advanced delivery system that transports gene-editing tools based on the CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing system into living cells with significantly greater efficiency than before. Their technology, ENVLPE, uses engineered ...

Viral 'Backbone' Underlies Variation in Rotavirus Vaccine Effectiveness

Apr. 8, 2025 — Researchers have shown that differences in the entire rotavirus genome -- not just its two surface proteins -- affect how well vaccines work, helping to explain why some strains are more likely to infect vaccinated ...

How Bacteria 'Vaccinate' Themselves With Genetic Material from Dormant Viruses

Mar. 21, 2025 — Scientists say they have shed new light on how bacteria protect themselves from certain phage invaders -- by seizing genetic material from weakened, dormant phages and using it to 'vaccinate' ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:58pm EDT

The Relationship Between Gut Microbiota, Immunoglobulin A, and Vaccine Efficacy

Mar. 13, 2025 — A study has established the importance of immunoglobulin A, an antibody that is part of the immune system, in generating a response to pneumonia ...

Midwestern Field Trials Suggest Overuse of Rootworm-Resistant Corn Reduces Farmers' Profits

Feb. 27, 2025 — An analysis of data covering 12 years and 10 U.S. Corn Belt states reveals that farmers suffer economic loss from the over-application of genetically ...

Select Corn Lines Contain Compounds That Sicken, Kill Major Crop Pest

Feb. 26, 2025 — The corn earworm causes the loss of more than 76 million bushels of corn in the United States annually, and there is mounting evidence that increasingly extreme weather events and temperatures will ...

Missing Protein Keeps Mice Slim, Even on a High-Fat Diet

Feb. 26, 2025 — Researchers investigating the role of the protein CD44 in obesity and metabolic health found that CD44-deficient mice stayed lean even on a high-fat diet, while the control mice developed obesity. A ...

Biologists Transform Gut Bacteria Into Tiny Protein Pharmacies

Feb. 18, 2025 — Biologists converted gut bacteria into miniature protein factories that manufacture and release a sustained flow of targeted proteins inside the lower intestines. This technique solves one of the ...

New Study Uncovers How Genes Influence Retinal Aging and Brain Health

Feb. 18, 2025 — Researchers used mice with nine different genetic backgrounds to identify factors influencing eye aging, paving the way for eye-based diagnostics for neurodegenerative ...

Engineered Animals Show New Way to Fight Mercury Pollution

Feb. 12, 2025 — Using genes borrowed from bacteria, researchers have demonstrated fish and flies can be engineered to break down methylmercury and remove it from their bodies as a less harmful gas, offering new ways ...

New Study Model With Clues to Anti-Aging

Feb. 4, 2025 — Scientists have created genetically-engineered mice that could help accelerate anti-aging ...

Research Using Non-Toxic Bacteria to Fight High-Mortality Cancers Prepares for Clinical Trials

Jan. 16, 2025 — Scientists have made 'exciting,' patient-friendly advances in developing a non-toxic bacterial therapy, BacID, to deliver cancer-fighting drugs ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Climate-Ready Crop

Dec. 4, 2024 — A team has engineered potato to be more resilient to global warming showing 30% increases in tuber mass under heatwave conditions. This adaptation may provide greater food security for families ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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, etc. Ovarian transplantation, one of those methods, ...

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 known as cotton bollworm or Helicoverpa zea. They ...

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 energy that a plant absorbs is converted into ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...