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Gene editing extends lifespan in mouse model of prion disease

Broad Institute

The treatment, which uses base editing to make a single-letter change in DNA, reduced levels of the disease-causing prion protein in the brain by as much as 60 percent. This has the potential to be a really promising strategy. In the future, the team hopes to make the base-editing cargo smaller, because dual AAVs can be costly to produce.

Disease 144
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Marvin Caruthers receives inaugural Merkin Prize in ceremony at the Broad Institute for DNA synthesis technology

Broad Institute

Related links Merkin Prize Inaugural Merkin Prize in Biomedical Technology awarded to Dr. Marvin Caruthers for developing technology that efficiently synthesizes DNA The inaugural Richard N. Caruthers was announced as the winner in June for his development, in 1981, of an efficient, automated technology for synthesizing DNA.

DNA 52
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The science of ageing and restoring healthspan

Drug Target Review

Modifications to the epigenome, such as DNA hypermethylation, modify the expression of genes by increasing or decreasing their expression without altering the genes themselves. One way we are doing this at Life Biosciences is through partial epigenetic reprogramming. The epigenome drifts with age, leading to dysregulated gene expression.

Science 145
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The Biotech Startup Contraction Continues… And That’s A Good Thing

LifeSciVC

Beyond simply backing great science (separating the wheat from the chafe), setting a company up properly is critical, and early choices can get locked into the DNA of the company. Some continue to do so today, unfortunately, but there appears to be less of it happening. Second, great teams of truly experienced leaders are scarce.

DNA 107
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CRISPR to Reveal How “Water Bears” (Tardigrades) Survive Extreme Environments

PLOS: DNA Science

After all, they can reproduce even under radiation levels 1,000 times that which would kill a human, possessing admirable DNA repair skills. But since 2012, the gene editing tool CRISPR has introduced a specificity to removing a gene to see what it does. And that’s what the work described in the new paper in PLoS Genetics does.

DNA 97
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Driving Toward Nanopores

Codon

And unlike traditional DNA sequencers, which parse genetic material by breaking it up into fragments and interpreting it chunk-by-chunk, a nanopore device unspools a long strand of DNA and reads it all at once. A scientist can isolate DNA and load up a flow cell in fifteen minutes. Nanopore devices work incredibly fast.

DNA 74
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AI in gene delivery vector discovery and design

Drug Target Review

Genome engineering and gene therapies that manipulate DNA sequences in cells have driven a biotechnological revolution over the past decade. Molecular Therapy 20 , 1831-1832 (2012). 1 Adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors are the leading platform for in vivo gene delivery for the treatment of various human diseases. Ylä-Herttuala S.