Learning to Create Biology from Nature in this Week’s Sci-Schmooze

by Minu (Meenakshi Prabhune)

Hello fellow Schmoozers,

I have been thinking of the ideas I mean to cover in the Schmooze this week and the Synbiobeta meeting, held from 1 Oct to 3 Oct in SF, tops my list. I hope some of you had the chance to participate in the associated synthetic biology week that took place from Sept 30 to Oct 6. There were different synthetic biology related talks and activities for kids and adults during the week. Here’s my favorite pic from the “Be a Scientist and Explore DNA” day at Innovative Institute of Genomics: https://twitter.com/igisci?lang=en

Anyway, circling back to Synbiobeta meeting: it is a congregation of synthetic biology experts from academia and industry. For many people outside the field, the very definition of synthetic biology may not be clear. I had written about this last year after my first Synbiobeta meeting last year (you are welcome to check out the summary post), but here’s a refresher. It encompasses all the ways in which one could learn from nature to introduce deviations from usual biological pathways in the lab.

The applications of this field are remarkable; it is valuable in medicine, agriculture, biofuels, food, beverages, textiles, the list could go on. I am in fact working on an article to bring you concrete application examples and perspectives of thought leaders on future of the field, but more on that later. Suffice it to say for now that this industry will revolutionize the way we live within the next decade.
Another news on the professional front: I have joined Synthego, a company specializing in genome engineering solutions, as a scientific writer and editor. My main role is to strategize content for their blog and webpage. More than self-promotion, the reason for mentioning this here is that we do have (and will have) a lot of educative material around genome engineering on our website. I know “gene editing” is turning out to be catch phrase of the century, and I would love to spread more awareness regarding the same. One reason is also because I think there is a lot of hype around this topic, especially concerning the CRISPR technology. People believe that it will cure us all or kill us all, both extremes for a technology that is not even a decade old.

So, in case any of you are interested, I invite you to check out our blog for material on understanding the potential of CRISPR and its realistic applications. One of my favorite posts that might appeal to a broad audience is a case study about how labeling GMO food influenced public attitude. Lastly, we have also started a podcast recently, so feel free to subscribe if you prefer listening over reading: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/crispr-cuts/id1434115281?mt=2

Finally, moving on to my event recommendations for the week.
1. Exoplanet frontiers: Kepler & the next decade of NASA exploration, Monday, 10/08/18, 03:00 PM – 04:30 PM, Menlo Park

2. Santa Cruz Forestry Challenge, Wednesday, 10/10/18 through 10/13/18, Boulder Creek

3. After Dark: Preservation, Thursday, 10/11/18, 06:00 PM – 10:00 AM, San Francisco

Have a curious week ahead!
Greetings,
Minu
Science writer and journalist

Virtual Skeptics in the Pub

WHAT: Virtual Skeptics in the Pub

FOCUS: Becoming better consumers of information

This is a casual night of socializing with fellow skeptics who live in various locations around the oblate spherical planet Earth.

Please join us! This is a free event brought to you by Bay Area Skeptics. All are welcome.

WHEN: Wednesday December 25, 7-9pm Pacific (GMT-8)

HOW: Online. Join HERE. Passcode: 1023

SkepTalk

Ann Gibbons

WHAT: Lone Survivors: Neanderthals, Denisovans, and Us

In the past decade, new studies of ancient DNA from fossils have shown that, until as recently as 40,000 years ago, our ancestors shared the planet with two close relatives, the Neanderthals and a mysterious group called the Denisovans. Both of those groups became extinct, but traces of their DNA remain in the genomes of modern humans. Meanwhile, researchers are discovering diverse types of human ancestors who were living at the same time in the same fossil sites millions of years ago, suggesting that we were never alone—that there were always other types of hominins alive in Africa and elsewhere on the planet until recently. Join us for a discussion with Ann Gibbons about new research that has changed perceptions of the Neanderthals, shed new light on the mysterious Denisovans, and our place in the human family tree.

WHO: Ann Gibbons is a contributing correspondent for Science magazine and the author of The First Human: The Race to Discover Our Earliest Ancestors, which was a finalist for the LA Times best science and technology book. She also has taught science writing at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and written about human evolution for National Geographic, SLATE, Smithsonian magazine and other publications. A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, she was also a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a science writing fellow at the Marine Biological Laboratory.

She was awarded the 2019 American Geophysical Union’s Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism, the 2018 and 2013 National Academy of Sciences Communication Awards for best magazine/newspaper article; the 2014 Society of American Archaeology Gene S. Stuart Award; and the 2012 Anthropology in Media Award from the American Anthropological Association (AAA) for a decade’s worth of stories on human origins and evolution.

WHEN: Thursday January 9 at 6:30PM PT (GMT -8)

HOW: (details coming soon)