CRISPR – Page 3 – Impact Lab

Gene editing technique allows silkworms to produce spider silk

August 9, 2018

An analysis of transformed cocoons. Morphology of the WT-1, FibH+/-, FibH-/-, WT-2, MaSp1+/-, and MaSp1+/+ cocoons. Scale bar represents 1 cm. Credit: Jun Xu

A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in China has succeeded in using a gene editing technique to get silkworms to produce spider silk. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes the technique they used and the quality of the silk produced.

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Biotech, Cancer, Medical Breakthrough, Medicine, Science & Technology News

Scientists just found a novel, cheap way to use CRISPR gene editing to fight cancer

July 21, 2018

Immunotherapy Holds Big Promise for Beating Cancer

CRISPR is by all accounts a fascinating technology. Its headline feature is that it can literally be used to slice, dice, and otherwise manipulate the body’s genetic code—functions that could carry staggering implications for treating everything from inherited disorders to cancer to HIV/AIDS one day.

Now, new (though extremely early) research suggests that CRISPR could be used to vastly improve upon a new form of cancer-fighting methods that turn the body’s own immune T cells into specially targeted killers that attack cancerous tissue.

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Bill Gates, Biotech, Genes, Genetics, Medical Breakthrough, Science & Technology News

Gene editing for good

May 1, 2018

How CRISPR could transform global development.

Today, more people are living healthy, productive lives than ever before. This good news may come as a surprise, but there is plenty of evidence for it. Since the early 1990s, global child mortality has been cut in half. There have been massive reductions in cases of tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDS. The incidence of polio has decreased by 99 percent, bringing the world to the verge of eradicating a major infectious disease, a feat humanity has accomplished only once before, with smallpox. The proportion of the world’s population in extreme poverty, defined by the World Bank as living on less than $1.90 per day, has fallen from 35 percent to about 11 percent.

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Biotech, cutting edge, Healthcare, Medical Breakthrough

New CRISPR method takes on Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

March 5, 2018

The advance of CRISPR gene editing technology, which uses an RNA strand to guide an enzyme called Cas9 to cut a specific portion of DNA, has raised concerns and sparked debate as people envision a not-so-distant future populated by bioengineered super-crops, genetically flawless pets, and customized babies. While the method could be used for these purposes, it’s also showing potential as a valuable medical tool, with a seemingly new condition added each week to the list of what CRISPR may one day cure.

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Cancer, China, Medical Breakthrough

Chinese doctors are using modified T-Cells to treat advanced forms of cancer

March 1, 2018

Shixiu Wu, president of the Hangzhou Cancer Hospital, has started treating patients with advanced forms of cancer with modified T-cells. Despite his success, others worry China’s lack of tight research regulations could be putting patients at risk.

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Biotech, Cancer, China, Genes, Medical Breakthrough

Doctors in China lead race to treat cancer by editing genes

February 26, 2018

Shaorong Deng gets an experimental treatment for cancer of the esophagus that uses his own immune system cells. They have been genetically modified with the gene-editing technique known as CRISPR.

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Biotech, China, Genes, Genetics

China has already gene-edited 86 people with CRISPR

January 23, 2018

In the U.S., the first planned clinical trials of CRISPR gene editing in people are about to kick off. China, meanwhile, has been racing ahead, having already used the gene-altering tool to change the DNA of dozens of people in several clinical trials.

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Biotech, DNA, Medical Breakthrough

The code of life

August 17, 2017

Centuries ago we were writing on clay tablets.

In this century we will write the stuff of life.

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AI, Alzheimer's Disease, Analysis, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Bill Gates, Biotech, Birth, Breakthrough Thinking, Business, Cancer, cutting edge, Medical Breakthrough, Medicine

We’re beginning to see the medical revolution CRISPR had promised

May 19, 2017

There’s a revolution happening in biology, and its name is CRISPR.

CRISPR (pronounced “crisper”) is a powerful technique for editing DNA. It has received an enormous amount of attention in the scientific and popular press, largely based on the promise of what this powerful gene editing technology will someday do.

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AI, Biotech, Genes, Genetics, Healthcare

Using Gene Editing to Transform Cancer

November 27, 2016

You may have heard of the gene-editing technique CRISPR-cas9, often simply called CRISPR. Introduced in 2012, CRISPR works like a pair of scissors to cut DNA, inserting or reordering bits of genetic code with remarkable, science-fiction-like results: CRISPR can help create mosquitoes that don’t transmit malaria, or be used to breed unusually muscular beagles, or even create mini pigs. In humans, the technology is being tested to battle cancer — by removing patients’ immune cells, editing them, and reinserting the weaponized cells into the body to hunt cancer.

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Analysis, Future, Health & Fitness, Medical Breakthrough, Medicine, Science & Technology News

Biotechnology startup will begin testing CRISPR gene editing on humans in 2017

November 6, 2015

Editas CEO Katrine Bosley

Editas Medicine, a biotechnology startup, will begin tests of a powerful new form of gene repair in humans within two years. Speaking this week at the EmTech conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Editas CEO Katrine Bosley said the company hopes to start a clinical trial in 2017 to treat a rare form of blindness using CRISPR, a groundbreaking gene-editing technology.

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Analysis, Health & Fitness, Science & Technology News

The scientific quest to cure aging

November 26, 2014

The goal of biomedical research is to allow people to be as healthy as possible for as long as possible.

CRISPR is the revolution to enable genome editing and the bio-information revolution is happening. Joao Pedro de Magalha does not consider the breakthroughs in gene and genome editing that are occurring with CRISPR.

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