New post! @nikomccarty.bsky.social and I have been writing regular round ups for a little while now, but so much has happened recently that this month’s post feels like it contains a year’s worth of breakthroughs. Read it here!

What’s new in biology: June 2026

The most effective weight-loss drug so far, cancer breakthroughs, gene editing for cholesterol, ancestral CRISPR systems, and more.

worksinprogress.news

I think this is one of the finest essays we've ever published at @asimovpress.bsky.social It tells the entire story of a liver transplant, without sparing any detail. Every cut, every incision...the race to the next hospital... I learned a ton. Highly recommend Donna Vatnick's article.

Asimov Press@asimovpress.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Writer Donna Vatnick spent dozens of hours observing a liver transplant. She watched as surgeons extracted an organ from a dead donor, placed it on ice, flew it to another hospital, and transplanted it into the recipient. The full story, told in intricate detail, is out now:

Hyperspectral cameras, mounted to drones, can be used to see microbes from > 90 meters away. It's now possible to monitor microbes across entire ecosystems. My new Asimov Press essay explains how it works & regulations on releasing genetically-engineered microbes into the wild.

Today we are launching Issue 08 of @AsimovPress. There will be at least 2x new articles each week for the next two months (and...a podcast?) Coming up: - A deep history of electron microscopy. - How to see microbes from the sky. - Making computers smell. ... and much more.

New post! A round up of the latest advances in biotech and medicine by @nikomccarty.bsky.social and me. Prime editing, curing whipworm, a new narcolepsy drug, designing protein nanoparticles, the 3D structure of E. coli's genome and more! Read it all here: www.worksinprogress.news/p/whats-new-...

What’s new in biology: September 2025

Gene therapy, narcolepsy drugs, parasite removal, protein nanoparticles, the 3D structure of genomes, and more.

worksinprogress.news

Asimov Press party // September 30 // Boston // Asimov HQ There will be trivia. There will be winners (and losers). And there will be prizes. Come celebrate, answer questions, and show everyone how much esoteric biology stuff you know. Hope to see you there!

Out today: A useful review on AI-designed protein binders. It covers the history of this work + has lots of good case studies, including how these tools are being used to make snake anti-venoms. The tables are particularly valuable.

E. coli copies 600 bases of DNA/second. It makes one error every few billion bases, or one mutation per 1,000 generations. I made an animation to show just how crazy this is. Every green square is a copied nucleotide. The red squares (very rare) are mutations. 🔻

Behold the cursed noodles. Researchers mixed together chicken muscle cells and microalgal cells, and then extruded them with a 3D printer, to make a "plant and animal cell-based hybrid noodle." The reason for doing this, they say, is to tune textures, nutrition levels, etc.

Cable bacteria link together (thousands of cells, end-to-end) to conduct electrons across distances up to 7 centimeters. They are living batteries. They were discovered in Aarhus, Denmark in 2012. I visited Aarhus last year to see them in person, and wrote about it today.

What is a specific problem in biology that would be useful to solve, and could be solved for ~$10,000?

The flagellum motor is biological design of the highest order. The motor hits rotational speeds >1,000 rpm. The basal disk (that purple ring) alone is built from 51 tethered subunits. The tail whips at high torques thanks to interlocking cogs, an axial driveshaft, and propeller.

Using E. coli to convert post-consumer PET plastic into acetaminophen. The researchers discovered a biocompatible Lossen rearrangement; it uses phosphate as a catalyst. They start the Lossen rearrangement in phosphate buffer and add E. coli; PET to acetaminophen at 92% yield.

YouTube channel idea: Recreating famous biology experiments. Explain what was known at the time, go through the initial observations, and make the "discovery." e.g. Monod's biphasic E. coli growth curves, T.H. Morgan's fly breeding programs, and so on.

It's sad, in a way, that a magazine spending $4M a year to hire additional, talented writers is seen as "throwing a lot of money." It's good that The Atlantic is spending more money on writers. It is the anti-status quo. May their poaching drive up salaries elsewhere, too.

Biotech papers & news this week: 1. Chemical reactions can be affected by stir bars. 2. A tool to drag membrane transporters into peroxisomes. 3. Full computational design of Kemp eliminase enzymes. 4. UK government to approve crops made using precision breeding. & more...

"...we establish an all-cell-free viral cycle where T7 phages infect synthetic cells, equipped with lipopolysaccharides on the outer leaflet of the lipid membrane while encapsulating a cell-free gene expression system." Looks useful; an in vitro system to study viral infections.

Much like fingerprints, humans can be identified using their nasal airflow patterns. By measuring air as it flows in and out of the nose over a 24-hour period, researchers identified individuals with up to 96.8% accuracy (in a cohort of 97 people).

Today is my first day as Writer-in-Residence at @arcinstitute I'll be writing about the Virtual Cell, genome editing + much more. Grateful for the invitation to spend my summer here and learn more about AI+Bio!

I recently visited Rocinha, which is Rio de Janeiro's most populous favela. It is quite unsafe and sad, in many ways. I wouldn't recommend going there yourself. But here are some photos from that visit, which I plan to write about soon.

This study estimates that "a brain performing active tasks consumes just 5% more energy compared to a resting brain." Cognition is extremely energy efficient. Glucose provides most of this energy. The estimate was made by looking at fMRI, PET, and other data sources together.

We made a huge poster that illustrates all of the major genome editing tools in one place. You can download a copy for free from the @AsimovPress website. press.asimov.com/articles/cr...

I'll be living near Stanford this summer, from ~June 10 to August 10. I'm hoping to meet lots of people and learn a lot more about AI+Bio efforts. Let's hang out!

Journey of a pill. This article traces the making of a common drug, clonazepam, from the mining of raw materials in India to manufacturing in New Jersey and packaging in Tennessee. "The total distance travelled in this scenario is approximately 63,162 km..."

I'm doing weekly Links posts again. Maybe you'll hate it. But there's too much good stuff on the Internet not to share it!

I'm offering free copies of the @AsimovPress book to iGEM students, or college students enrolled in biotechnology courses, in the U.S. If you'd like copies for your team/class, DM me. I'll send out 1 book per student & 1 DNA capsule per shipment. While (limited) supplies last.

A new device "measures...milk volume during breastfeeding" and then sends the data "to a smartphone" for real-time tracking so that mothers can track how much milk is consumed by the infant. Seems really useful.

Another insane example of insect evolution. Female digger wasps: 1. Remember locations of <10 nests at once. 2. Feed their offspring in order, by age, to reduce chances of starvation. 3. Will delay feeding a child if that child was given a larger amount of food previously.

The first experimentally-solved, 3D structures of the human sweetness receptor. Resolved in complex with sucralose and aspartame; but the structures were identical. Upon binding, these molecules cause the protein to *slightly* bend & trigger a signaling cascade in the cell.

> be plant > leaves attacked by insect > warn neighbors by releasing molecules into air > neighbors get the signal > neighbors trigger molecular cascade and "talk to" soil bacteria > soil microbes "increase plant growth and enhance plant defences." Plants are highly underrated.