Current genome-editing technologies introduce double-stranded (ds) DNA breaks at a target locus as the first step to gene correction. Although most genetic diseases arise from point mutations, current approaches to point mutation correction are inefficient and typically induce an abundance of random insertions and deletions (indels) at the target locus resulting from the cellular response to dsDNA breaks. Here we report the development of ‘base...
Tag Archives: editing
Genome editing: The domestication of Cas9
The enzyme Cas9 is used in genome editing to cut selected DNA sequences, but it also creates breaks at off-target sites. Protein engineering has now been used to make Cas9 enzymes that have minimal off-target effects. See Article p.490
Nature 529 468 doi: 10.1038/529468a
Startup Spotlight: BeFunky makes online photo editing and graphic design simple
Today, almost everyone has a smartphone — which means almost everyone is an amateur photographer. But that wasn’t the case in 2007, when Portland natives Tekin Tatar and Kemal Ozisikcilar founded photo editing tool BeFunky. Still, they anticipated the increasing...
Gene editing tech named Science magazine’s Breakthrough of the Year
3d render of a DNA spirals
CRISPR, a genome-editing technology that has been progressing rapidly in the last three years, has just been named Science’s Breakthrough of the Year. CRISPR is a futuristic technique that can be used to edit and manipulate the DNA of any organism—crops, livestock, and even humans. It can allow scientists...