Some of the images from the first weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic are indelible: doctors and nurses wearing garbage bags instead of gowns and reusing the same protective mask for days at a time; homemade plastic face shields replacing professional-grade models; live coverage of deliveries of personal protective equipment to hard-hit hospitals. The...

Bioscience research is undergoing a wave of automation and digitization, turning a manual, laborious practice into a true industry.

Why it matters: Biotechnology promises to revolutionize everything from medicine to energy, but for that to happen, the field needs to move out of the traditional lab and into something resembling a foundry. The...