Scientists switch mouse's genes off and on with radio waves

Scientists switch mouse's genes off and on with radio waves: "Some laboratory mice were given specially engineered insuling-producing genes. These genes were then remotely activated using radio waves. This could mean a whole new field of medical procedures in which we turn genes on and off at will.



This breakthrough is the work of geneticists at New York's Rockefeller University. It's a pretty circuitous path from the initial burst of radio waves to the activation of the gene, and there's still a lot of refinement and improvement that needs to be made before this can be used in medical treatments, but still - we're talking about the ability to modify the behavior of genes without ever going inside a patient's body. That's a potentially colossal advance."