Maxine Singer, a molecular biologist who helped map the inner workings of DNA and led seminal debates in the 1970s that contributed to the first guidelines on the potential risks and ethical ...

Genetic engineering has proven far more complicated than anyone expected 50 years ago. After the initial fears and optimism of the 1970s, each decade has confronted researchers with new puzzles.

The genetic engineering described in reports about the event has now become widespread; it’s difficult to imagine the scientific and medical world of today without its discussion of recombinant DNA.

In 1971, he transferred material from one organism to another, creating the first recombinant DNA, or rDNA. He later helped lead a historic effort to write protocols for genetic research.

Fifty years ago today, scientists met to set safety limits on the new field of genetic engineering. This week researchers meet again to discuss big questions as biotechnology grows more powerful.

Paul Berg, scientific firebrand who pioneered genetic engineering, dies. Paul Berg in 1975. (Jose Mercado / Stanford News Service) ... The process became popularly known as recombinant DNA.

But before Harvard could build a laboratory to do it, University scientists had to overcome entrenched fears that this form of genetic engineering — recombinant DNA technology — would produce ...

By the spring of 1971, Mertz had the DNA pieces she needed. But Berg’s lab still lacked a method for making this trivalent recombinant DNA. Once introduced into E. coli and replicated there to high ...

The famed 1975 conference about a controversial genetic technology is feted as an example of how scientific self-regulation works. But more significant is what wasn’t discussed.

Maxine Singer, scientist who shaped rules on genetic engineering, dies at 93. In the early 1970s, the molecular biologist led seminal discussions on the ethics and risks of genetic experimentation.