Wilfred Chen (left), the University of Delaware Gore Professor of Chemical Engineering, and graduate student Ka-Hei Siu designed structures for targeted gene regulation in E. coli bacteria.
UD engineers develop methods to use CRISPR technology for conditional gene regulation
A team of engineers at the University of Delaware has developed a method to use CRISPR/Cas9 technology to set off a cascade of activities in cells, a phenomenon known as conditional gene regulation. Their method, described in the journal
Nature Chemical Biology, introduces a new functionality to CRISPR, one of today’s most-talked-about technologies. Gene editing with CRISPR technology has been called “
one of the biggest science stories of the decade” for its applications to medicine, agriculture and much more. CRISPR allows scientists to precisely target and edit DNA within living cells, which could help them correct anomalies that cause inherited diseases. The first clinical trials in humans are underway in China. However, until now, scientists hadn’t figured out how to program their CRISPR systems to target DNA while integrating information from within the cells they were studying. At UD,
Wilfred Chen, the Gore Professor of
Chemical Engineering, and graduate student Ka-Hei Siu designed structures — dubbed toehold-gated gRNA (thgRNA)— for targeted gene regulation in E. coli bacteria.
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