Chemical engineers develop biosecurity tool to detect genetically engineered organisms in the wild
Published Date: 5/21/2019
Source: phys.org
If a genetically or synthetically engineered organism is released into the environment, how will we know? How can we tell it apart from the millions of microorganisms that exist naturally in the wild? That's the challenge being taken on by a multi-institution research team, including Eric Young, assistant professor of chemical engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), that is developing a biosecurity tool that can detect engineered microorganisms based on their unique DNA signatures.