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More than 400 scientists, bioethicists, and historians from 20 countries on 6 continents have gathered this week in Washington, DC, for the Human Gene Editing Summit. The attendees are a veritable who's who of genome editing: Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley, Emmanuelle Charpentier of Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, and Feng Zhang of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard-the three discoverers of the CRISPR-Cas9 system's utility in gene editing-plus dozens of other big names in genome science. Cal Tech's David Baltimore along with the heads of the four national societies hosting the meeting (US National Academy of Sciences, US National Academy of Medicine, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the U.K.'s Royal Society) provided opening remarks on Tuesday (December 1). And as I sat stage right in the NAS auditorium, I noticed the unmistakable rear profile of Harvard Medical School's George Church three rows in front of me. Church was scheduled to speak at a session later that afternoon about the application of CRISPR and other new precision gene editing techniques to the human germline-a hot-button topic since April, when a Chinese group published it had successfully modified the genomes of human embryos, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) said it would not fund such research. Then in September, the U.S./U.K.-based Hinxton Group, an international consortium of scientists, policy experts, and bioethicists, said it supported the use of genetic editing in human embryos for limited applications in research and medicine.  

One concern repeatedly raised by critics who don't want the FDA to give the transgenic fish the green light: What would happen if these fish got out of the land-based facilities where they're grown and escaped into the wild? Would genetically modified salmon push out their wild counterparts or permanently alter habitat? In a review paper published this month in the journal BioScience, scientists tackle that very question. Robert H. Devlin, a scientist at Fisheries and Oceans Canada, led a team that reviewed more than 80 studies analyzing growth, behavior and other trait differences between genetically modified and unaltered fish. The scientists used this to predict what might happen if fish with modified traits were unleashed in nature.

Following on the achievements of Chinese researchers, scientists in the United States have used CRISPR to manipulate the genomes of viable human embryos, MIT Technology Review reported yesterday (July 26). The work, not yet published, reportedly corrected defective genes from sperm donors in dozens of embryos, which were allowed to grow for several days.

While scientists study how nature works, engineers create new things, such as products, websites, environments, and experiences. Because engineers and scientists have different objectives, they follow different processes in their work. Scientists perform experiments using the scientific method; whereas, engineers follow the creativity-based engineering design process.

Scientists don't fit a mold - the stories we tell about them shouldn't either. We've created scientist-of-the-month toolkits for teachers, parents/guardians, and informal educators to easily share these stories with their students.

We are a group of 5000+ scientists who are available to video chat into your classroom and have an open discussion with your class! The goal of the program is for students to have positive experiences with scientists and form a personal connection with someone working in a scientific field.

Many biology courses are designed to develop student understanding and application of the scientific method, but few seriously examine the various ethical questions associated with scientific research. This interdisciplinary case study presents three experiments and asks not only if they are scientifically valid but whether they were ethically performed.  The experiments examine the psychology of love, a cause of breast cancer, and how the immune system functions in the presence of cancer. Based on their opinions of the validity and ethics of each experiment, students are asked to conclude which of the experiments were actually conducted by scientists and which are fictional. Students should already be familiar with the scientific method, but information on the Georgetown Mantra and Nuremberg Code.is included. The case could be modified for use in non-majors and majors classes.  The format of the case challenges students of any background to use information from both science and ethics to see how the differing approaches of scientist and ethicist can complement and strengthen each other.

Genetic differences among ethnically diverse individuals are largely due to structural elements called copy number variants (CNVs), according to a study published today (August 6) in Science. Compared with other genomic features, such as single nucleotide variants (SNVs), CNVs have not previously been studied in as much detail because they are more difficult to sequence. Covering 125 distinct human populations around the world, geneticist Evan Eichler at the University of Washington in Seattle and an international team of colleagues studied the genomes of 236 people-analyzing both SNVs and CNVs. "The take-home message is that we continue to find a lot more genetic variation between humans than we appreciated previously," Eichler told The Scientist.

Scientists have genetically engineered monkeys so that they exhibit behaviors similar to autism, with a goal of testing potential therapies on the animals in hopes that their resemblance to humans will yield more answers about the disorder. The scientists found that the monkeys showed "very similar behaviors related to human autism patients, including repetitive behaviors, increased anxiety and, most importantly, defects in social interactions," said Zilong Qiu, a leader of the research at the Institute of Neuroscience at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai. The team is now imaging the brains of the monkeys, he said, "trying to identify the deficiency in the brain circuits that is responsible for the autism-like behavior."

This case study examines the molecular methods that were used to reverse engineer the 1918 influenza virus strain in order to try and solve the mystery of why it was so deadly. The story starts in the 1950s with the unsuccessful attempts to culture the influenza virus and follows scientists through to the turn of the century when cutting edge molecular tools enabled scientists to finally resurrect the 1918 virus through reverse genetics. The history and methods involved in resurrecting this deadly virus are reviewed in class with a PowerPoint presentation containing clicker questions (answered with a personal response system) and discussion questions (answered in small groups). This "clicker case" is suitable for high school biology and lower division undergraduate biology classes for non-majors. It could also be used in any lower division non-major class focused on human disease and the history of human disease.

This case study examines a variety of biological factors that may have been involved in the 2013 dolphin "unusual mortality event" (UME) on the East Coast of the United States. The story follows a news reporter and four different scientists who are preparing their notes for speaking at a public hearing about the dolphin die-off event. After reading the story, students assume the roles of these scientists and use the jigsaw method to gather, analyze, and share information.  Due to the interdisciplinary nature of environmental toxicology, this case study exposes students to four main topics: ecology of ecosystems, endocrine system/chemical messaging, immune system function, and virus biology.

An international group of scientists meeting in Washington called on Thursday for what would, in effect, be a moratorium on making inheritable changes to the human genome. The group said it would be "irresponsible to proceed" until the risks could be better assessed and until there was "broad societal consensus about the appropriateness" of any proposed change. The group also held open the possibility for such work to proceed in the future by saying that as knowledge advances, the issue of making permanent changes to the human genome "should be revisited on a regular basis."

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania performed "stress tests" on pregnant mice using a predator's odor, restraint, or unfamiliar noises. After the mice gave birth, the scientists analyzed the bacterial communities in their vaginas and in their pups' colons. The researchers found that stress during pregnancy altered the expression levels of several proteins involved in vaginal immunity and the frequency of Lactobacillus bacteria, which, expectedly, correlated to lower frequencies of Lactobacillus within their pups' gut microbiomes. Male pups of stressed mothers also displayed an increase in anaerobic bacteria like Clostridium and Bacteroidesin.

Emerging diseases and potential pandemics make the news nearly every year. Students (and everyone else) may wonder where new infectious diseases come from, how scientists assess the risk of a pandemic, and how we might go about preventing one. This case study uses a PowerPoint presentation to explore these questions by focusing on HIV, a pandemic that began as an emerging disease. The storyline progresses backwards through time as scientists attempt to unravel the origins of a new, mysterious plague. Much of the case relies on audio excerpts from an episode produced by Radiolab, an acclaimed radio show that explores a variety of topics in science and culture (www. radiolab.org). Students use graphics, animations, and sound clips presented in the PowerPoint slides to discuss several sets of questions. The case is suitable for a wide range of high school and college introductory biology courses, as well as undergraduate microbiology, ethics, and public health courses.

The Miller-Urey experiment was the first attempt to scientifically explore ideas about the origin of life. Stanley Miller simulated conditions thought be common on the ancient Earth. The purpose was to test the idea that the complex molecules of life (in this case, amino acids) could have arisen on our young planet through simple, natural chemical reactions. The experiment was a success in that amino acids, the building blocks of life, were produced during the simulation. The finding was so significant that it kick started an entirely new field of study: Prebiotic Chemistry. Scientists now have reason to believe that the gases used in the Miller-Urey simulation were not actually the same as those of the ancient atmosphere. Because of this, many experiments have since been done, testing a wide variety of atmospheres and different environmental conditions. The results are overwhelming: the molecules of life can form under a wide variety of ancient Earth-like conditions. Many questions about the origin of life remain to be answered but these findings give strong support to the idea that the first living cells on Earth may have emerged from natural chemical reactions.

When scientists first made contact with an isolated village of Yanomami hunter-gatherers in the remote mountains of the Amazon jungle of Venezuela in 2009, they marveled at the chance to study the health of people who had never been exposed to Western medicine or diets. But much to their surprise, these Yanomami's gut bacteria have already evolved a diverse array of antibiotic-resistance genes, according to a new study, even though these mountain people had never ingested antibiotics or animals raised with drugs. The find suggests that microbes have long evolved the capability to fight toxins, including antibiotics, and that preventing drug resistance may be harder than scientists thought.

Data Nuggets are free classroom activities, co-designed by scientists and teachers, designed to bring contemporary research and authentic data into the classroom. Data Nuggets include a connection to the scientist behind the data and the true story of their research. Each activity gives students practice working with 'messy data' and interpreting quantitative information. Students are guided through the entire process of science, including identifying hypotheses and predictions, visualizing and interpreting data, making evidence based claims, and asking their own questions for future research. Because of their simplicity and flexibility, Data Nuggets can be used throughout the school year and across grades K-16, as students grow in their quantitative abilities and gain confidence." Sounds like real science to me!

Flinn Scientific has launched a website with an extensive amount of resources specifically developed to help teachers, students and parents continue their science education journey - even if that learning is taking place outside the classroom or laboratory environment. Examples of some of the resources we have developed: Free video labs with related teacher and student guides to help students at home continue making progress on key science topics More than 40 free, easy and fun-to-do activities that use commonly available materials to encourage science investigation in the home Flinn's unique digital learning solutions to facilitate seamless science learning. These online solutions are the perfect way to efficiently scale curriculum in an at-home setting - also free of charge On call scientists: over the coming days, we will be releasing video based lab experiments conducted by our scientific staff and broadcast from our studio with live events. As part of each live event, we will have our full team of scientists available to answer questions from teachers and students participating online - also free of charge and highly interactive and engaging. Be sure to check out our online calendar indicating the live schedule

Scientists and healthcare professionals initially exhibited little concern over the Zika virus even after evidence of human infection was first identified in 1952; Zika appeared to be both rare and unassociated with morbidity or mortality. Around 2015 all of this changed as journalists, scientists, public health officials, and laypeople scrambled to learn about its varied modes of transmission and devastating consequences (e.g., birth defects and autoimmune disorders). Although research continues to rapidly evolve, this case study directs students to reliable scientific sources (e.g., Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organization) that will likely continue to provide the most current information in order to explore questions such as: Where did the virus come from? How does it spread? What can we do to prevent it? Students will also consider the public health challenges and possible solutions associated with emerging infectious diseases. The case was originally written for an upper-level biology or public health course in which students already have some basic background knowledge regarding viruses, vaccines, and infectious disease.

Adam Ruben's tongue-in-cheek column about the common difficulties and frustrations of reading a scientific paper broadly resonated among Science Careers readers. Many of you have come to us asking for more (and more serious) advice on how to make sense of the scientific literature, so we've asked a dozen scientists at different career stages and in a broad range of fields to tell us how they do it. Although it is clear that reading scientific papers becomes easier with experience, the stumbling blocks are real, and it is up to each scientist to identify and apply the techniques that work best for them. The responses have been edited for clarity and brevity.