Last week our article on new anti-CRISPR proteins was published in Cell Host & Microbe. Anti-CRISPRs are small proteins that inhibit the activity of CRISPR-Cas. These days a lot of research is focused on finding more active CRISPR-Cas systems. So why does anyone want to reduce CRISPR-Cas activity? A big challenge with CRISPR-Cas is that it cleaves DNA where it is not supposed to, known as the “off-target effect”. This means CRISPR-Cas can introduce mutations that are unwanted.

Why do functional metagenomics and synthetic biology (synbio) make such an interesting combination? This week, our new article in Nature Chemical Biology ‘The evolving interface between synthetic biology and functional metagenomics’, sheds light on how progress in synthetic biology can advance, and already have advanced, the field of functional metagenomics. We are facing a growing and aging world population, and mankind thus needs new drug molecules and ways to produce nutrients.