The CRISPR news just keeps coming. As we've described here before, CRISPR is a breakthrough way of editing the genome of many organisms, including humans -- a kind of biological cut-and-paste function that is already transforming scientific and clinical research. However, there are still some significant scientific hurdles that exist when attempting to use the technique in cells directly isolated from human patients (these are called primary cells) rather than human cell lines grown for long periods of time in the laboratory setting.
Now pediatric stem cell biologist Matthew Porteus, MD, PhD, and postdoctoral scholars Ayal Hendel, PhD, and Rasmus Bak, PhD, have collaborated with researchers at Santa Clara-based Agilent Research Laboratories to show that chemically modifying the guide RNAs tasked with directing the site of genome snipping significantly enhances the efficiency of editing in human primary blood cells -- an advance that brings therapies for human patients closer. The research was published yesterday in Nature Biotechnology.
As Porteus, who hopes to one day use the technique to help children with genetic blood diseases like sickle cell anemia, explained to me in an email:
We have now achieved the highest rates of editing in primary human blood cells. These frequencies are now high enough to compete with the other genome editing platforms for therapeutic editing in these cell types.
Porteus and Hendel previously developed a way to identify how frequently the CRISPR system does (or does not) modify the DNA where scientists tell it. Hendel characterizes the new research as something that will allow industrial-scale manufacturing of pharmaceutical-grade CRISPR reagents. As he told me:
Our research shows that scientists can now modify the CRISPR technology to improve its activity and specificity, as well as to open new doors for its use it for imaging, biochemistry, epigenetic, and gene activation or repression studies.
Rasmus agrees, saying, "Our findings will not only benefit researchers working with primary cells, but it will also accelerate the translation of CRISPR gene editing into new therapies for patients."
Onward!
(Those of you wanting a thorough primer on CRISPR --how it works and what could be done with it -- should check out Carl Zimmer's comprehensive article in Quanta magazine. If you prefer to learn by listening (perhaps, as I sometimes do, while on the treadmill), I found this podcast from Radiolab light, but interesting.)
Previously: Policing the editor: Stanford scientists devise way to monitor CRISPR effectiveness and "It's not just science fiction anymore": Childx speakers talk stem cell and gene therapy
