We hate the cliché, “Think outside the box.” But we love stories about breaking free of the box’s confines. Several such stories appear in GEN’s July issue. Our cover story, for example, describes how organs-on-chips are disregarding boundaries between labs-on-chips, which emphasize precision engineering, and 3D cell cultures, which emphasize self-organization. July GEN also includes a feature story that asks which microbiome therapeutic is best—a “magic bullet” bacterium, or a consortium that includes direct-acting and supportive strains. The answer? It’s up in the air. Still higher, above the atmosphere, another feature story describes how biotech is slipping the surly bonds of Earth, thanks to experiments aboard the International Space Station. What else? The universe that is the tumor microenvironment is being charted by multimodal biomarker panels, which promise to guide immunotherapy. Finally, a contributed article celebrates biotech’s collaborative COVID-19 response, but also goes a bit further to ask, “Why not apply the collaborative approach to something bigger than the pandemic—like the life sciences ecosystem as a whole?”ronment is being charted by multimodal biomarker panels, which promise to guide immunotherapy. Finally, a contributed article celebrates biotech’s collaborative COVID-19 response, but also goes a bit further to ask, “Why not apply the collaborative approach to something bigger than the pandemic—like the life sciences ecosystem as a whole?