New gene-editing technology could correct 89% of genetic imperfections
Researchers have built up a new gene-editing technology that could conceivably correct up to 89% of genetic imperfections, including those that reason diseases like sickle cell anemia.
The new procedure is called "prime editing," and was created by scientists from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, who published their discoveries Monday in the journal Nature.
Prime editing expands on amazing CRISPR gene editing, yet is more exact and flexible - it "directly writes new genetic information into a specified DNA site," as per the paper.
In the traditional CRISPR-Cas9 approach, Cas9, a sort of modified protein, acts like a pair of scissors that can snip parts of DNA strands. It can target genes in a particular location - for example, to disrupt a mutation.
Around 66% of realized human ...