This month, GEN explores the innards of several drug development modalities. Now, “innards” may seem too visceral a word, but it is apt, particularly with respect to our coverage of synbio-based manipulations of the gut microbiome. But then, the phrase “inner mechanisms” would also serve. It is in the spirit of another part of our coverage, an article that describes how developers of synbio therapeutics are being used to install gene circuits and rewire cell signaling pathways. GEN has yet other opportunities to delve deeply: articles that describe how new therapeutics are undoing cancer and neuropsychiatric disorders at multiple levels, how glycomics technologies are supporting precision medicine, how PCR-based clinical applications are expanding beyond COVID-19 diagnostics, and how agricultural applications of gene editing may help us cope with a warming world. And last but not least, GEN describes six up-and-coming COVID-19 vaccines.