Andy Ellington's Blog

Ever since I’ve been a practicing molecular biologist, we’ve used plasmids as vehicles for genetic engineering. Or, more accurately, episomes, encompassing the range of extra-genomic information that can replicate inside of cells. In parallel, viral vectors have been harnessed in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. I sometimes wonder whether this predilection to eipsomes has driven perceptions of synthetic biology. If you want to engineer a cell of course you must add information to the cell in a somewhat orthogonal fashion, with its own origin and its own means of being maintained, separate from the chromosome. I think this is one of the reasons that the “Venter shunt” of synthesizing the whole genome has attracted so much attention (other than the obvious, of course: that it’s awesome!). (more…)

You may or may not have noticed a button alongside these musings that links to Traitwise. I’ve been working towards installing a more cogent version of this feature, and may get to that at some point. In the meantime, some explanation may be required. As usual, it will be in the form of a story. (more…)

I have begun to work with my friend George Georgiou on antibody development, and it’s really a kick. Basically, after having worked on functional RNAs for many years it’s sort of neat to be able to work with a biopolymer that actually has the ability to tightly bind ligands. (more…)