The news: A West Coast biotech entrepreneur says he’s secured $30 million to form a public-benefit company to study how to safely create genetically edited babies, marking the largest known investment into the taboo technology.
How they’re doing it: The new company, called Preventive, is being formed to research so-called “heritable genome editing,” in which the DNA of embryos would be modified by correcting harmful mutations or installing beneficial genes. The goal would be to prevent disease.
Why it’s contentious: Creating genetically edited humans remains controversial. The first scientist to do it, in China, was imprisoned for three years. The procedure remains illegal in many countries, including the US, and doubts surround its usefulness as a form of medicine. Read the full story.
—Antonio Regalado
This startup wants to clean up the copper industry
Demand for copper is surging, as is pollution from its dirty production processes. The founders of one startup, Still Bright, think they have a better, cleaner way to generate the copper the world needs.
The company uses water-based reactions, based on battery chemistry technology, to purify copper in a process that could be less polluting than traditional smelting. And the hope is that this alternative will also help ease growing strain on the copper supply chain. Read the full story.