Based in Brazil, Fernanda Ferreira is a science writer who covers a range of STEM (and occasionally non-STEM) topics, from textile conservation to vaccine stockpiles.
“Shrink to grow” is a two-pronged business strategy where a company gets rid of unprofitable brands (“shrink”) to focus its resources on a few remaining or new brands (“grow”). Companies like P&G and Microsoft have used it, and a similar idea to “shrink to grow” is behind the George Church lab’s ongoing development of the synthetic bacteria rEcoli57. But while the executives at P&G were streamlining the number of brands they carry, the researchers in the Church lab are streamlining rEcoli57’s genetic code in order to more effectively expand it later.
