In 2014, genomic sequencing giant, Illumina, announced that their new machine could sequence whole human genomes for $1,000 per genome. It was a significant milestone for a technology that cost some $95 million per genome when it arrived early this century. Illumina now dominates the industry; but this week, we learned it has some serious new competition. Ultima, ...
AI has done it again. After solving one of the grandest mysteries in biology—predicting protein structure—it decoded how proteins link up into complexes, and dreamed up novel protein structures that may ultimately be turned into drugs to control our basic biology, health, and life. Yet when faced with enormous protein complexes, AI faltered. Until now. In a ...
Some biological processes are so central to life as we know it that it’s tempting to assume all the key innovations in biochemistry have already happened. Processes like photosynthesis and glycolysis have existed for millennia and are essential to the survival of countless species. But the Earth is only just over halfway through its habitable […]