Broad Institute

JUNE 27, 2024

Unlike gene editing, this “epigenetic” editing does not modify the underlying DNA sequence, but it should switch the gene off permanently, which means that this could be a one-time treatment. At first, they used part of a methyltransferase, a molecule that adds methyl groups to DNA, called DNMT3A.

Disease 142

Disease Therapies Engineering Clinical Trials 142

PLOS: DNA Science

APRIL 4, 2024

Fishy Regulations Lume falls under the cosmetic category at FDA and so needn’t have undergone clinical trials, because it doesn’t treat an illness or condition. The chemo trial preceded Lume by more than a decade, so you’d think the product name would have been better researched. Remember the statins?

Disease 98

Disease Production Testimonials FDA 98

Codon

JULY 21, 2024

It may seem that if researchers are sufficiently concerned about the welfare of lab animals, the best thing to do would be to stop using animals altogether. However, a multitude of factors—from institutional inertia to a global animal-testing industry worth billions of dollars —make this outcome unlikely.

Research 112

Research Engineering Disease Science 112

Codon

MARCH 14, 2023

The ALS Therapy Development Institute, located just ten minutes from my home in Cambridge, once tested more than 100 potential drugs to slow ALS progression in mice, all of which had been reported to be helpful in other studies. There are even differences in how their genomic DNA is packaged inside of neurons. Free-range mice?

DNA 52

DNA Laboratories Engineering Animal Testing 52