Skip to main content

Don’t drop your diet yet, but scientists have discovered how CRISPR can burn fat

 

A personalized therapy for metabolic conditions that are linked to obesity could involve removing a small amount of a person’s fat, transforming it into an energy-burning variation using CRISPR gene-editing, and then re-implanting it into the body, according to researchers from the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Recommended Videos

In tests involving mice, the implanted human fat cells helped lower sugar concentrations in the blood and decrease fat in the liver. When the mice were put on a high-fat diet, the ones that had been implanted with the human beige fat only gained half as much weight as those that had been implanted with regular human fat.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

“Over the last decade, it has become clear that humans have ‘white’ adipose tissue that stores fat, but also a less abundant type of adipose tissue called ‘beige” or ‘brown,’ that can burn fat,” Michael Czech, a professor in molecular medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, told Digital Trends. “Beige adipose tissue also secretes factors that are beneficial to the liver and muscles and can combat obesity-related Type 2 diabetes. These findings have led to the concept that enhancing the amount of brown adipose tissue in people may enhance their health and help to prevent diabetes.”

Czech said that the researchers’ work is exciting for a couple of reasons. The first is that the team has uncovered the specific gene, Nrip1, that prevents both human and mouse adipocytes from expressing these “beige” characteristics. The second is that, having discovered it, they’ve also found a way to delete it using CRISPR technology. Once the gene has been eliminated, white fat cells are converted into more “beige-like,” fat-burning condition.

It’s still early days for the project, but the research thus far is certainly promising. “Just like CAR-T technology in the cancer field, where blood cells from a patient can be expanded and modified genetically to fight tumors when injected back into the same patient, we envision using fat progenitor cells from patients with metabolic disorders … to alleviate disease,” Silvia Corvera, another leading professor in molecular medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, who worked on the project, told Digital Trends.

A paper describing the work, titled “CRISPR-enhanced human adipocyte ‘browning’ as cell therapy for metabolic disease,” is available to read online.

Luke Dormehl
Former Digital Trends Contributor
I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…
The EU is cracking down on labels in Windows 11’s Start menu
The Surface Pro 11 on a white table in front of a window.

To align with the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA), Microsoft is updating Windows 11's Start Menu Search, but only for users in the European Economic Area, as Tech Radar reports. The software giant is introducing more transparent labels to distinguish between web search results and local ones. This move is part of broader changes that let users uninstall Edge and turn off Bing integration, reinforcing transparency and user choice.

The changes are in a new Windows 11 Insider Preview Build, build 27764. Notably, X user @alex290292 shared a screenshot that shows the new Start menu user interface with the "Windows" and "Web search from Bing" sections. These changes are great news since they give users more control over Windows 11. Specifically, the modifications include adding custom web search providers to Windows Search, letting users remove the Edge browser, and turning off Bing web search.

Read more
Chrome incognito just got even more private with this change
The Chrome browser on the Nothing Phone 2a.

Google Chrome's Incognito mode and InPrivate just became even more private, as they no longer save copied text and media to the clipboard, according to Windows Latest. The changes apply to Windows 11 and 10 users and were rolled out in 2024. However, neither Microsoft nor Google documented it.

Even though this change is not a recent feature, it's odd that neither tech giant thought it was worth mentioning. Previously, the default setting was that when a user saved text or images to the clipboard history, it was synced with Cloud Clipboard on Windows. Moreover, accessing this synced content was as simple as pressing the Windows and V keys, which poses a security risk, especially when using incognito mode.

Read more
Google Messages might let you unsend awkward messages in RCS chats
The Google Messages app on the Galaxy S25 Ultra.

Google Messages, the default messaging app on Android phones, could soon get new features that will let you unsend texts like third-party messengers. The unsend functionality is reportedly under testing and will be available for chats over RCS protocol, which succeeds traditional SMS with improved support for multimedia, emoji, reactions, etc.

Presently, when you delete a message, it is only removed from your device without impacting other participants in the chat. Now, Google appears to be testing a new "delete for everyone" functionality for conversations that will delete messages for all parties, similar to instant messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram. 9to5Google spotted references to the under-development functionality, suggesting it might be available for a wider audience to benefit from -- though the exact timeline of remains unknown.

Read more