CRISPR, crispr genome editing system

What is CRISPR gene editing, and how does it work?

You’ve probably read stories about new research using the gene editing technique CRISPR, also called CRISPR/Cas9. The scientific world is captivated by this revolutionary technology, since it is easier, cheaper and more efficient than previous strategies for modifying DNA. The term CRISPR/Cas9 stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats/CRISPR associated protein 9. The names reflect important features identified during its discovery, but don’t tell us much about how it works, as they were coined before anyone understood what it was. What does CRISPR/Cas9 do? CRISPR/Cas9 is a system found in bacteria and involved in immune defence. Bacteria use CRISPR/Cas9 to cut up the DNA of invading bacterial viruses that might otherwise kill them. Today we’ve adapted this molecular machinery for an entirely different purpose – to change...
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CRISPR gene-editing tested in a person for the first time

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A Chinese group has become the first to inject a person with cells that contain genes edited using the revolutionary CRISPR–Cas9 technique. On 28 October, a team led by oncologist Lu You at Sichuan University in Chengdu delivered the modified cells into a patient with aggressive lung cancer as part of a clinical trial at the West China Hospital, also in Chengdu. Earlier clinical trials using cells edited with a different technique have excited clinicians. The introduction of CRISPR, which is simpler and more efficient than other techniques, will probably accelerate the race to get gene-edited cells into the clinic across the world, says Carl June, who specializes in immunotherapy at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and led one...
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‘C.R.I.S.P.R.': Jennifer Lopez Sets Futuristic Bio-Terror Drama at NBC

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NBC is reteaming with Jennifer Lopez for a futuristic procedural. The network has handed out a script order to drama C.R.I.S.P.R., which is being produced by the Shades of Blue star, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. C.R.I.S.P.R.— aka ” clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats” — is a procedural thriller set five minutes into the future that explores the next generation of terror: DNA hacking. If the project moves forward, each episode will explore a bio-attack and crime — from a genetic assassination attempt on the president to the framing of an unborn child for murder. The show’s central character is a scientist with the CDC who is paired with an FBI agent. In the same vein of Castle, romance will...
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Cutting Out Cancer: CRISPR Gene Editing Could Make Cancer Mutations Inactive

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A group of researchers from Dresden’s National Center for Tumor Disease (NCT), the Medical Faculty of the Technische Universität (TU) Dresden, and the German Consortium for Translational Cancer Research (DKTK), have found a way to use CRISPR-Cas9 to identify and cut out the particular cancer genes that advance mutations. “Mutations in cancer cells are identified at increasing speed through next generation sequencing, but we mostly do not know, which of these mutations are actually driving the disease and which ones are rather benign,” leading researcher Frank Buchholz said in a journal article. Of the more than 500,000 identified cancer mutations, the researchers were able to confirm that more than 80% can be cleaved using CRISPR-Cas9 scissors. DRIVER AND PASSENGER   National...
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CRISPR used to make a tumour shrink itself

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Scientists have used gene editing to reprogramme a signal that normally promotes tumour growth into one that shrinks it instead. In a study published in Nature Methods, a team from the First Affiliated Hospital of Shenzhen University, China, showed how they could stop the growth of cancer in cells by modifying part of the CRISPR–Cas9 system. When mice carrying these modified genes were tested, scientists found their tumours were far smaller than those seen in control animals. CRISPR-Cas9 is a gene editing platform that is currently being looked at as a means of providing treatments for diseases by targeting cells. Cas9 is an enzyme that cuts a double DNA strand at a point, while CRISPR is a chemical messenger. The...
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CRISPR: A Billion-Dollar Pie

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CRISPR sits in the middle of a costly patent brawl. That hasn’t stopped scientists and venture capitalists from betting on who will win. Business is moving fast with licenses being sold, awaiting the USPTO’s decision in November which may declare a winner on the patent. When it comes to pharmaceuticals, patents are licensed and traded in the amount of millions of dollars funneled through a 14 to 20-year timer. While the stakes are high, CRISPR/Cas9 is not the only gene editing technology out there. It was however, the first gene editing technology to be discovered in ancient bacteria, channeling new interest with the hope to discover an unclaimed and more effective gene editing technique. Who’s Who in the CRISPR Patent Brawl...
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Scientists shocked by major CRISPR breakthrough

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Genetic engineering has popped up in the headlines again after a breakthrough study pushed the CRISPR-Cas9 editing technique to a new level of precision. According to a report from Nature, the technique used for cutting and pasting genes has now been adapted to work for cutting RNA. The breakthrough could give researchers an entire new set of tools for studying and attempting to treat diseases. The study was published by a team led by Feng Zhang from the Broad Institute. Researchers used CRISPR, which stands for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats,” to begin splicing and rearranging RNA strands. Published in the journal Science, the findings could lead to techniques that could significantly reduce the burden of a number of...
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USDA announces it will stop regulating all GMO crops altered with CRISPR gene editing technique

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As reported by Business Insider, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released a letter to the public last week confirming that the agency does not plan to regulate a mushroom thathas been genetically modified so that it won’t turn brown. The letter was in response to an inquiry from mushroom developer Dr. Yinong Yang, of the College of Agricultural Services at Penn State University, about whether a division of the USDA would be seeking to regulate the mushroom. This decision, wherever it ultimately came from, is in contrast to the USDA’s previous approach with GMOs, which are regulated by the department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). That division supposedly monitors new genetically modified foods that “may pose a risk...
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CRISPR Treatment for HIV reportedly three years away

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An end to HIV and Supports reportedly could be simply a couple of years away after researchers have had the opportunity to successfully snip away the disease from infected skin cells and prevent the condition from returning.  Researchers at the Lewis Katz College of Medication at Temple University or college are confident that next three years they’ll be able to start out human trials, the united kingdom Daily Telegraph reported. American researchers have previously shown that it’s possible to edit genes to slice the virus from DNA cells entirely. British experts assume that this treatment, which includes only been tried in labs, allows your body to “cure itself from the within effectively,” the newspaper reported. People immune cells which were...
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