Scientists switch mouse’s insuling-producing 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. Admittedly, while the treatment itself is totally non-invasive, the researchers did first have to inject some nanoparticles onto the mice's cells in order to affect their genes. It's a bit of a complex process, but Nature has a good explanation of just what was involved: http://io9.com/5908065/scientists-switch-mouses-genes-off-and-on-with-radio-waves?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_twitter&utm_source=io9_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow