By Francesca Ceroni William Gilbert once said that “we are embedded in a biological world and related to the organisms around us”. This is very true especially if we think about the many bacteria and microorganisms that co-exist within our body and that we do not always notice, except when their presence leads to an…

By Francesca Ceroni In “Emergent properties at the DNA level” I shared how the prediction of the behaviour of DNA heterologous systems (i.e. artificial DNA fragments that are non-native for the cell) from their individual components is still a challenge in cell engineering. Here, I would like to move from the DNA level to the…

By Francesca Ceroni Just like computers need a program to perform a specific task, so do cells that need DNA to perform specific functions.  DNA is a molecule stored within all cells, from simpler bacteria to more complex mammalian cells that make up our body. DNA carries the instructions (genes) the cells need to produce…