- CRISPR-Cas9 “immune orthogonality” pipeline: a new pre-print proposes repeatedly switching among 91 Cas9 orthologs and 167 AAV capsid variants to evade immune memory, with 83 % of Cas9 pairs predicted to be non-cross-reactive.  
- First-in-human optogenetics trial: Ed Boyden’s Chrimson (red-light–activated channelrhodopsin) is scheduled to enter Phase I/II in Q1 2018 via GenSight Biologics.  
- Non-invasive neural-control toolkit: two new pre-prints describe (1) acoustically targeted chemogenetics using ultrasound-propelled nanomotors and (2) deep image reconstruction directly from human fMRI activity.  
- Open-source lab automation: EndyLab released OpenTrons scripts that perform 4-fold serial dilution and plating of Golden-Gate–transformed E. coli, aiming for fully automated BioBrick assembly.  
- Economic case for atomic-level molecular manufacturing: maaku argues that bottom-up, diamondoid-style nanotech could replace most non-food/non-service GDP, slashing material costs to “potato-level” prices while enabling ultra-light, ultra-strong smart materials.  
- DNA synthesis economics debate: participants challenge the “copying DNA is like copying software” analogy, noting that biological systems still require redesign, maintenance, and new synthesis for novel functions.  
- MIT BioHackers website (mitbiohackers.com) and polymerase molecular-animation gallery (diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/polymerase/molecular-events/) were shared as community resources.