Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Emerging Tech
  3. News

CRISPR gene editing may have just become a whole lot more accurate

Luke Dormehl
By

mcgill crispr 90 percent breakthrough wr 6 8 17
CRISPR gene editing is an enormously exciting area for molecular biologists, opening up new opportunities when it comes to editing DNA to fight back against a wide range of medical conditions. Heck, it’s so versatile that it can even be used to encode a GIF into the DNA of a virus, demonstrating how it is possible to capture complex information in living bacteria.

If CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindronic repeats) wasn’t already exciting enough, however, it could be about to become even more of a highly prized tool in the hands of researchers. At McGill University in Montreal, researchers in Uri David Akavia’s team have demonstrated CRISPR’s best success rate yet: managing to repair mutations in 90 percent of target cells.

Recommended Videos

That is particularly significant because, while CRISPR is very good at disabling certain genes (in one recent experiment it was able to disable the defective gene that triggers ALS in mice), it is much harder to use CRISPR to fix genes. This approach, which usually works in under 10 percent of target cells, involves replacing a faulty DNA with another working sequence. Until now, the highest success rate was 60 percent, meaning that the McGill University team has performed significantly better.

Related

In order to increase the efficiency of the CRISPR technique, Akavia’s team physically linked the replacement DNA with the CRISPR protein which finds and removes the faulty sequence, as well as using a polymer called polyethyleneimine to directly target the nucleus of the cells — thereby reducing waste.

Going forward, the technique could conceivably be used for treating or eliminating entirely all inherited diseases. This is something previous CRISPR work has sought to do but could be revolutionized by this more successful approach. However, before too many champagne corks are popped, the team will need to demonstrate efficacy on a wide range of cells to show that their approach is versatile and repeatable under different conditions. We’ll keep our fingers firmly crossed!

“Our approach offers a cost-effective, simple and broadly applicable editing method, thereby expanding the CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing toolbox,” the researchers note in a paper describing the work. The research paper is available to read on biological sciences online repository, bioRxiv.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Luke Dormehl
Luke Dormehl
Contributor
I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…
Google Maps has just become a whole lot more useful for bikesharing fans
best e bikes 2015 cyclist

More and more app-based bikesharing services are rolling into cities, but for riders, that can mean more confusion as you search through multiple apps to find nearby stations and available bikes.

Aiming to smooth the way, Google Maps now tells you the location of bike stations and how many bikes are available in real-time. Even better, as you embark on your journey, you can also check ahead to confirm which nearby stations have an available space for parking your bike at the end of the trip. The new feature has been made possible by transit software company Ito World, which is now sharing its global bikeshare data with Google, among others.

Read more
Chinese government may have helped fund controversial CRISPR babies experiment
CRISPR gene-editing technology

The controversial “CRISPR babies” experiment in China might have been carried out with the support of the Chinese government. According to a report by STAT, three governmental institutions -- including China’s science ministry -- may have contributed funding to the gene-altering experiments, which were harshly criticized by the international scientific community.

STAT claims to have seen a slide presentation prepared by researcher He Jiankui and his team. It listed funding sources for the experiment including China’s Ministry of Science and Technology, Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Commission, and Southern University of Science and Technology, where He was employed. While it is possible that these institutions were not aware of how their grant money was being used, if they did have knowledge of this it would mean that China funded research widely condemned as unethical.

Read more
Controversial CRISPR baby experiment may have resulted in brain enhancements
CRISPR gene-editing technology

China’s CRISPR baby saga continues to rage on. After the birth of gene-edited twins in China last year, and the reported pregnancy of a second woman, the world’s scientific community voiced their shock at what sounds (provided it’s accurate) like an ethical nightmare. Now scientists have expressed concerns that the procedure may also have resulted in changes in the babies’ brains that could affect cognition and memory.

The genetic modifications were intended to eliminate a gene called CCR5, thought to be responsible for potentially fatal diseases including HIV, smallpox, and cholera. A newly published research paper in the journal Cell suggests that CCR5 manipulation can additionally lead to enhanced recovery after brain injury, including motor recovery following strokes. While this has only been demonstrated (outside of China) in mouse models, the findings could conceivably be applicable in human subjects. It is not clear whether Chinese researcher He Jiankui was trying to modify the intelligence of his subjects with his controversial experimentation.

Read more