Caltech's ACE method moves 2M bases of DNA in one step to build bacterial chimeras
NikoMcCarty · x · 2026-11-11
A new paper from Kaihang Wang's group at Caltech introduces ACE (Additive Conjugative-CAST Engineering), a simple method to move 2 million bases of DNA between bacteria in a single step, creating "bacterial chimeras".
- The team built organisms with mixed genomes, e.g. 4.6M bases from E. coli DH10B combined with 2M bases from Syn61.
- The method combines conjugative transfer with CAST (CRISPR-associated transposase) systems, enabling genome-scale engineering in one step — a new toolkit for synthetic biology genome design.
More from Research
- ByteAsk Paper: Build-Aware C++ Agent Cuts Tokens 63-80%, Matches Codex CLI Fixes — rohanpaul_ai · 2026-11-11
- Deletion Tuning: Zeroing 0.05% of Weights Matches Full Fine-Tuning With Less Forgetting — Thrumpwart · 2026-11-11
- OpenTac: JHU/MIT open-source flex-PCB tactile skins that sensorize any robot surface — _krishna_murthy · 2026-11-11
- L Somerset proposes testable inside-view vs outside-view framework for agent interactions — SucceededMind · 2026-11-11
- Chinese team open-sources a 15B-parameter humanoid robot foundation model — lmoroney · 2026-11-11
- Josh Siegle proposes an "ImageNet for cell types" to link neural activity to cell identity — patrickmineault · 2026-11-11