Blog at יואל קסלר: The clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-Cas9 nuclease system is a bacterial defense mechanism used by bacteria living in hostile environments to repair DNA damage. It has been one of the hottest areas of research in medicine and has revolutionized gene therapy. CRISPR technology became well known in the general public after 2 of its early researchers Dr Jennifer Doudna and Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier received the Nobel Prize for their work in using this technology for gene editing.see more here about the history and evolution of this technology and its impact for treating genetic diseases.
Dr. David Liu is the Richard Merkin Professor, Director of the Merkin Institute of Transformative Technologies in Healthcare, and Vice-Chair of the Faculty at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT; Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences and Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University; and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. Professor Liu’s research integrates chemistry and evolution to illuminate biology and enable next-generation therapeutics. His major research interests include the engineering, evolution, and in vivo delivery of genome editing proteins such as base editors and prime editors to study and treat genetic diseases; the evolution of proteins with novel therapeutic potential using phage-assisted continuous evolution (PACE); and the discovery of bioactive synthetic small molecules and synthetic polymers using DNA-templated organic synthesis and DNA-encoded libraries. Base editing (named one of four 2017 Breakthrough of the Year finalists by Science), prime editing, PACE, and DNA-templated synthesis are four examples of technologies pioneered in his laboratory. He is the scientific founder or co-founder of seven biotechnology and therapeutics companies, including Editas Medicine, Pairwise Plants, Exo Therapeutics, Beam Therapeutics, and Prime Medicine. (credit Harvard University bio) explains the background and the potential of this technology in treating disease.
