CRISPR News and Research

Latest CRISPR News and Research

Increasing biodefense risks posed by synthetic biology

A US Department of Defense commissioned study has found that there are several genetic-engineering tools that could be used to devise biological weapons in a short amount of time.

19 Jun 2018

Study combines gene editing and stem cell technologies to predict person’s risk for heart disease

Scientists may now be able to predict whether carrying a specific genetic variant increases a person's risk for disease using gene editing and stem cell technologies, according to new research in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation.

18 Jun 2018

Gene editing technology predicts heart disease risk

Scientists could now use gene editing and stem cell technologies to predict whether carrying a specific gene variant increases the risk of heart disease.

18 Jun 2018

Scientists discover vaccine that may rapidly fight cholera-causing bacteria

A tricked-out cholera vaccine starts protecting against the deadly disease within a day, experiments in rabbits suggest.

14 Jun 2018

Synthetic gene reveals potential therapeutic target for rare, inherited disease

DNA Repair is essential for a healthy organism. In every day of our lives, tens of thousands of damages occur in the genetic material of our cells. Hence, it is not surprising that a broad variety of repair mechanisms developed in the course of evolution that enables cells to quickly react and patch up the affected DNA strands.

11 Jun 2018

CRISPR-Cas9 technique may raise cancer risk

Therapeutic use of gene editing with the so-called CRISPR-Cas9 technique may inadvertently increase the risk of cancer, according to a new study from Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, and the University of Helsinki, Finland, published in Nature Medicine.

11 Jun 2018

International research team develops simplified CRISPR

Details of an advanced form of CRISPR technology have been published in Nature Communications.

8 Jun 2018

New cell-based technologies could help improve understanding of muscle-wasting disease

Researchers from Queen Mary University of London have developed new cell-based technologies which could help improve understanding of the muscle-wasting disease Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and test potential drugs for the disease.

6 Jun 2018

Finnish research solves family blood mystery

It's the late 1970s, and a man with an unexplained high hemoglobin level (Hb) is referred to Namsos Hospital north of Trondheim, Norway. It turns out that four members of his family have the same condition. Doctor Kjell Kanelønning is the physician who treats the family.

6 Jun 2018

New RNA deletion tool could help create drugs that correct genetic diseases

As scientists gain insights into which genes drive diseases, they are pursuing the next logical question: Can gene editing technologies be developed to treat or even cure those diseases? Much of that effort has focused on developing technologies such as CRISPR-Cas9, a protein-based system.

30 May 2018

Mapping the Genes Responsible for Pluripotency

Dr. Atilgan Yilmaz and his team have developed a method by which they can produce haploid human embryonic stem cells from oocytes. They combined this technique with CRISPR-Cas9 to generate an atlas of the genome, containing the functions of over 18,000 genes.

23 May 2018

ToolGen's CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing platform improves T-cell anti-tumor activity in mouse model

ToolGen, Inc., a biotechnology company specializing in genome editing, today announced data demonstrating that blocking a molecular pathway that down-regulates T-cell activity with the Company’s CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing platform results in increased T-cell receptor signaling, in vitro, and in improved anti-tumor activity when tested against in a mouse glioblastoma tumor model.

22 May 2018

CRISPR-Cas9-based strategy allows researchers to precisely alter hundreds of different genes

Geneticists have been using model organisms ranging from the house mouse to the single-cell bakers' yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, to study basic biological processes that regulate human development and physiology, and that can be compromised in various diseases.

22 May 2018

Scientists identify new drug target to combat chikungunya virus

Scientists have identified a molecule found on human cells and some animal cells that could be a useful target for drugs against chikungunya virus infection and related diseases, according to new research published in the journal Nature.

21 May 2018

New CRISPR/Cas9 system targets regulatory genes of AIDS virus

By destroying the regulatory genes of the AIDS virus HIV-1 using the genome editing system CRISPR/Cas9, a Japanese research group has succeeded in blocking the production of HIV-1 by infected cells.

18 May 2018

Scientists identify new potential target to combat acute myeloid leukemia

AML is not a single disease. It is a group of leukemias that develop in the bone marrow from progenitors of specialized blood cells, the so-called myeloid cells. Rapidly growing and dividing, these aberrant cells crowd the bone marrow and bloodstream, which can be fatal within weeks or months if the disease is left untreated.

18 May 2018

Study provides insights into how immune cells kill bacteria with acid

The first line of immune defense against invading pathogens like bacteria are macrophages, immune cells that engulf every foreign object that crosses their way. After enclosing it in intracellular membrane vesicles, a process called phagocytosis, macrophages kill their prey with acid.

17 May 2018

Researchers discover mutation that can protect against Alzheimer's disease in mice

Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science have discovered a mutation that can protect against Alzheimer's disease in mice. Published in the scientific journal Nature Communications, the study found that a specific mutation can reduce the characteristic accumulation of the amyloid-beta peptide that occurs.

16 May 2018

Havard University grants license to Beam Therapeutics to develop new base editing technology

Harvard University has granted a worldwide license to Beam Therapeutics, Inc., to develop and commercialize a suite of revolutionary DNA base editing technologies for the treatment of human disease.

14 May 2018

CRISPR-based treatment can restore retinal function in mice with eye disease

Researchers from Columbia University have developed a new technique for the powerful gene editing tool CRISPR to restore retinal function in mice afflicted by a degenerative retinal disease, retinitis pigmentosa.

11 May 2018