Taking Measure Blog: Engineering / synthetic biology

Engineering / synthetic biology

A researcher wearing safety gear kneels at the open door of a lab fridge, displaying a tray of samples.

Sinking Our Teeth Into Science: How Biomedical Engineering Can Help Make Us Healthier

September 4, 2024

From safer dental products to tracking the movement of tiny plastics through gut tissues, regenerative medicine can make us healthier.

NIST researchers Elizabeth Strychalski and David Ross program the robotic arm that operates within the box-like structure of the NIST biofoundry.

The Promise of Synthetic Cells: Revolutionary New Drugs, Outer Space Explorers and Pushing Beyond the Limits of Evolution

July 31, 2024

Scientists are getting closer to creating a living cell from scratch. It could help treat diseases or even create life forms that can be better adapted to space

You Don’t Learn This in School: My Experience as a NIST Summer Intern

July 10, 2024

The most important thing I remember from being a NIST intern last summer is the power of persistence in research.

$close up of a clear fractured glass like substance with some rainbow distortions$

Clear as Glass: Studying Drug-Delivery Materials as a NIST SURF Student

October 6, 2021

This summer was an interesting one, to say the least. I was in the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program offered by the National Institute of

3D Printing With Light: A Q&A With NIST's Callie Higgins

May 3, 2021

Callie Higgins is a materials research engineer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). She studies a special branch of additive

RNA Structure and Dynamics: The One-Two Punch in the Fight Against COVID-19

February 24, 2021

We are all well aware of COVID-19, and by now most people have seen pictures of the spike protein that forms the “handshake” interaction between virus and host

Experts Next Door: How a Public-Private Partnership Benefits the Regenerative Medicine Community

September 30, 2020

I’m a scientific program manager at the Standards Coordinating Body (SCB), a private nonprofit organization devoted to advancing standards for regenerative

Manufacturing Standards for Biopharmaceuticals: A Q&A With NIST’s Sheng Lin-Gibson and Vijay Srinivasan

January 28, 2020

Biopharmaceuticals, also known as biological drugs or biologics, are manufactured from living organisms or contain living organisms that have been genetically

image of a subway train as it rushes past, the words "mind the gap" appear on the subway platform

Mind the Gap: Bridging the ‘Valley of Death’ for U.S. Biomanufacturing

January 14, 2020

Biopharmaceutical manufacturing uses living cells to produce therapies that treat diseases like cancer, diabetes and autoimmune disorders. Manufacturing

Genome in a Bottle: Spelling Out DNA’s ‘Dark’ Sequences

March 13, 2019

When the Human Genome Project began 20 years ago, its consortium of researchers at 20 research institutes spent more than $1 billion to sequence that first

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