Learning to program cellular memory
Monday, March 14, 2016 - 07:30
in Biology & Nature
What if we could program living cells to do what we would like them to do in the body? Having such control—a major goal of synthetic biology—could allow for the development of cell-based therapies that might one day replace traditional drugs for diseases such as cancer. In order to reach this long-term goal, however, scientists must first learn to program many of the key things that cells do, such as communicate with one another, change their fate to become a particular cell type, and remember the chemical signals they have encountered.