Niko McCarty

I think this is one of the finest essays we've ever published at
@asimovpress.bsky.social

It tells the entire story of a liver transplant, without sparing any detail. Every cut, every incision...the race to the next hospital...

I learned a ton. Highly recommend Donna Vatnick's article.

Seeing Microbes from the Sky Biotechnology needs more and better transducers.

Read & subscribe: press.asimov.com/articles/hy...

Hyperspectral cameras, mounted to drones, can be used to see microbes from > 90 meters away. It's now possible to monitor microbes across entire ecosystems.

My new Asimov Press essay explains how it works & regulations on releasing genetically-engineered microbes into the wild.

Editor's Note A look inside Issue 08.

Check out the Editor's Note here: press.asimov.com/articles/ed...

Today we are launching Issue 08 of @AsimovPress.

There will be at least 2x new articles each week for the next two months (and...a podcast?)

Coming up:
- A deep history of electron microscopy.
- How to see microbes from the sky.
- Making computers smell.

... and much more.

What’s new in biology: September 2025 Gene therapy, narcolepsy drugs, parasite removal, protein nanoparticles, the 3D structure of genomes, and more.

New post!

A round up of the latest advances in biotech and medicine by @nikomccarty.bsky.social and me.

Prime editing, curing whipworm, a new narcolepsy drug, designing protein nanoparticles, the 3D structure of E. coli's genome and more!

Read it all here: www.worksinprogress.news/p/whats-new-...

RSVP to ASIMOV PRESS: ISSUE 08 LAUNCH + TRIVIA | Partiful Join Asimov Press to celebrate our Issue 08 release! We'll have plenty of snacks and drinks, and will also do some biology trivia. Winning teams get DNA books. This event is adults only.

RSVP: partiful.com/e/sVXNLASsT...

Asimov Press party // September 30 // Boston // Asimov HQ

There will be trivia. There will be winners (and losers). And there will be prizes.

Come celebrate, answer questions, and show everyone how much esoteric biology stuff you know. Hope to see you there!

No paywall:
www.cell.com/action/show...

Out today: A useful review on AI-designed protein binders.

It covers the history of this work + has lots of good case studies, including how these tools are being used to make snake anti-venoms.

The tables are particularly valuable.

The Remarkable Speed of DNA Replication

You can play around with the notebook (and change the error rate) here:

observablehq.com/d/6d9b33b8a...

E. coli copies 600 bases of DNA/second.

It makes one error every few billion bases, or one mutation per 1,000 generations.

I made an animation to show just how crazy this is. Every green square is a copied nucleotide. The red squares (very rare) are mutations. 🔻

Article here:
www.nature.com/articles/s4...

Behold the cursed noodles.

Researchers mixed together chicken muscle cells and microalgal cells, and then extruded them with a 3D printer, to make a "plant and animal cell-based hybrid noodle."

The reason for doing this, they say, is to tune textures, nutrition levels, etc.

Read the essay in Asimov Press:
www.asimov.press/p/cable-bac...

Cable bacteria link together (thousands of cells, end-to-end) to conduct electrons across distances up to 7 centimeters. They are living batteries.

They were discovered in Aarhus, Denmark in 2012. I visited Aarhus last year to see them in person, and wrote about it today.

What is a specific problem in biology that would be useful to solve, and could be solved for ~$10,000?

Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s4...

The flagellum motor is biological design of the highest order.

The motor hits rotational speeds >1,000 rpm. The basal disk (that purple ring) alone is built from 51 tethered subunits. The tail whips at high torques thanks to interlocking cogs, an axial driveshaft, and propeller.

Paper here in Nature Chemistry: www.nature.com/articles/s4...

Using E. coli to convert post-consumer PET plastic into acetaminophen.

The researchers discovered a biocompatible Lossen rearrangement; it uses phosphate as a catalyst.

They start the Lossen rearrangement in phosphate buffer and add E. coli; PET to acetaminophen at 92% yield.

YouTube channel idea: Recreating famous biology experiments.

Explain what was known at the time, go through the initial observations, and make the "discovery."

e.g. Monod's biphasic E. coli growth curves, T.H. Morgan's fly breeding programs, and so on.

It's sad, in a way, that a magazine spending $4M a year to hire additional, talented writers is seen as "throwing a lot of money."

It's good that The Atlantic is spending more money on writers. It is the anti-status quo. May their poaching drive up salaries elsewhere, too.

Weekly Links #4 A synthetic cell phage cycle. Migrating moths use stars for guidance. Proteins from an ancient hominid.

Link: www.nmccarty.com/p/weekly-li...

Biotech papers & news this week:

1. Chemical reactions can be affected by stir bars.
2. A tool to drag membrane transporters into peroxisomes.
3. Full computational design of Kemp eliminase enzymes.
4. UK government to approve crops made using precision breeding.

& more...

PDF here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10....

"...we establish an all-cell-free viral cycle where T7 phages infect synthetic cells, equipped with lipopolysaccharides on the outer leaflet of the lipid membrane while encapsulating a cell-free gene expression system."

Looks useful; an in vitro system to study viral infections.

Much like fingerprints, humans can be identified using their nasal airflow patterns.

By measuring air as it flows in and out of the nose over a 24-hour period, researchers identified individuals with up to 96.8% accuracy (in a cohort of 97 people).

Today is my first day as Writer-in-Residence at @arcinstitute

I'll be writing about the Virtual Cell, genome editing + much more.

Grateful for the invitation to spend my summer here and learn more about AI+Bio!

I recently visited Rocinha, which is Rio de Janeiro's most populous favela.

It is quite unsafe and sad, in many ways. I wouldn't recommend going there yourself.

But here are some photos from that visit, which I plan to write about soon.