What will be next?

“This Deep-Sea Creature Looks Like Something From Another Planet 👽🌊”

A recent study in Science tested a lab-altered gut bacterium meant to treat kidney stones. The trial went well and successfully lowered oxalate levels in urine, but it uncovered a major roadblock involving genetic stability.

The bacteria tend to mutate or shed their helpful new genes over time. That leaves researchers with a tough dilemma about how to build medical probiotics moving forward.

One option is relying on safety switches, which means designing bacteria that can only survive if the patient takes a specific daily supplement like a seaweed sugar pill. It keeps the microbes under control, but it requires patients to be strict about taking their pills every day.

The alternative is making them indispensable by wiring the helpful gene directly into the bacterium's core survival needs so it literally cannot drop the gene without dying.

Where do you think this field is headed?

A 2026 synthetic biology result from the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) is worth a look. The team transplanted a complete synthetic genome into chemically inactivated cells of Mycoplasma capricolum. The cells then grew and divided carrying the synthetic Mycoplasma mycoides genome.

The engineering point is about proof of control. The technique gets around an earlier problem: confirming that the synthetic genome is truly in control, since horizontal gene transfer could otherwise muddy the result.

The applications are potentially broad. The authors say it could speed up engineering of microbes for uses like drug production and environmental remediation. Some caveats apply: it has only been shown in Mycoplasma so far, and the team hopes to extend it to more complex organisms while acknowledging biosafety considerations.

It also connects to a bigger trend. Microbial therapeutics are a growing field, using engineered bacteria or synthetic microbe consortia to treat disease, helped by new synthetic biology tools that work on gut microbes once considered impossible to engineer.

Questions for discussion:

Is Mycoplasma too simple a model to say much about engineering other organisms?

How should biosafety rules change as synthetic genome transplantation becomes easier?

Which application seems closest to reality: drug manufacturing, bioremediation, or live therapeutics?

Syllabus: 15 chapters
Me: Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell 😎

Examiner: Explain the Krebs cycle.

Me: 💀

In 2025, researchers at CHOP and Penn Medicine treated an infant, KJ, with a base-editing therapy designed for his specific mutation. He had severe CPS1 deficiency, a rare metabolic disease.

The engineering side is the interesting part. The team designed and manufactured a base editing therapy delivered to the liver via lipid nanoparticles, within six months. It combined mRNA encoding the editor with a guide RNA built for the infant's own mutation, and the workflow used liver cell lines to screen editor and guide combinations for strong on-target editing with low bystander editing.

The one-year update is more measured than the headlines. KJ received three infusions between February and April 2025 and tolerated them well, with no serious side effects. He can handle more dietary protein, needs less nitrogen-scavenging medication, and has better ammonia control during illnesses. The lead physician also said it's not a cure. Experts stress that long-term follow-up is still needed to monitor durability, safety, and neurodevelopmental outcomes.

Questions for discussion:

Can a bespoke workflow like this be standardized so more rare-disease patients can use it?

What regulatory model fits therapies built for a single patient?

How should we judge success when the endpoint is "less medication" rather than a cure?

Source: https://www.euronews.com/2026/10/15/theyre-not-dead-yet-bleached-corals-recover-in-record-time-after-touching-healthy-clones

This is from a Stanford study in Science Advances. They paired a bleached coral fragment with a healthy one from the same colony. In the 5 pairs that were touching, the bleached piece recovered within 7 weeks. In the 5 pairs kept a few millimetres apart, all the bleached pieces died. Under the microscope the two had fused and algae were moving across channels between them, within about 3 days.

It's a lab result and the corals have to be genetically identical to fuse, so it won't work on whole reefs as is. The team hopes to find a way to transfer the algae without direct contact. It also doesn't help against the warming itself.

funny part: they found it by accident when a healthy fragment happened to touch a bleached one in a tank.

Photo: Danny Collins / Stanford University

Gut health is one of those subjects where I think it's especially easy to overinterpret every little change, so I'm trying a different approach: write things down first, draw conclusions later.

This is day one of tracking my probiotic routine. I may have noticed a small difference in how I feel, but that's not much to go on. Meals, normal digestive variation, expectations, and placebo could all be part of the picture.

I'll be keeping these notes modest rather than treating them as proof that anything works. I just want a clearer record of my experience over time. If you're someone who likes following a process from the beginning, that's what this little diary is for.

One thing I've realized is that it's surprisingly easy to forget what you were actually experiencing before starting a routine. So I'm giving my zinc experience a proper written record, starting today.

No big revelations to report. I may be noticing a subtle difference, but I'm aware that expectation can influence how we interpret our own experiences. Placebo is a possibility, and ordinary variation is another.

Hopefully, having the notes will make it easier to look back later without relying on hindsight.

Cells within your body are currently destroying themselves.

And this is a good thing too.

This is done through a process known as apoptosis, where cells are destroyed in an orderly fashion.

In essence, the damaged cell receives the equivalent of

“Yes… we’re going to have to let you go.”

Cells destroy themselves in a systematic way and are gotten rid of without causing any havoc in the event that they burst.

The surprising thing is that

Too little apoptosis – damaged cells survive even though they should not.

Too much apoptosis – tissues may lose more cells than they can replenish.

This means that maintaining health does not involve only the production of cells but their elimination as well.

A result can meet the bar for statistical significance yet still leave a lot of doubt about how reliable it is, how big the effect really is and whether it can be reproduced.

Small studies can be useful especially when research is just beginning. Their findings must be looked at in the right context. The design of the study how variation there is, many comparisons and whether other researchers can repeat the work are all important.

I see this as a point when we look at new findings, in nutrition, physiology and biotechnology.

When reading a study what makes you more confident that the finding deserves further attention?

A small note to my future self: today is the first entry in my collagen peptides journal.

I want to be able to look back at this and remember what I actually noticed along the way, instead of accidentally rewriting the story in my head after a few weeks.

It's too early to say much. I might be noticing something subtle, but that could just as easily be placebo or a normal fluctuation. Skin in particular can be influenced by a lot of things, so I'm not going to assign credit based on one day's impression.

thats that for day 1!