By Anne Trafton -
Although human cells have an estimated 20,000 genes, only a fraction of those are turned on at any given time, depending on the cell’s needs—which can change by the minute or hour. To find out what those genes are doing, researchers need tools that can manipulate their status on similarly short timescales.
That is now possible, thanks to a new technology, developed by researchers from Harvard University and MIT working at the Broad Institute, that can rapidly start or halt the expression of any gene of interest simply by shining light on the cells.
The work is based on a technique known as optogenetics, which uses proteins that change their function in response to light.
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Gene expression controlled by reasearchers using light
