• Health
  • Science
  • U.S.
  • Technology
  • Business
  • World
  • Politics
  • Entertainment
  • Sports

Building a Better World

News and information

  • Home
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Us
  • Our Team

RNA-targeting CRISPR could help in revolutionizing disease treatments

June 6, 2016 By Jenny Marchal

RNA-targeting CRISPR could help in revolutionizing disease treatments

Scientists have found a way to apply the powerful gene-editing technology to proteins as well as genes opening the door to more diseases being treated.

CRISPR, a gene-editing tool, is continuing to be used in promising experiments and even sets to be involved in treating various conditions from Huntington’s Disease to cancer. Its use could revolutionize the way these potential life-debilitating diseases are targeted for treatment, reports The Washington Post.

This tool allows scientists to edit DNA extremely precisely and therefore able to target rouge genes and cut them out permanently. However, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have now gone one step further and used CRISPR with a type of mouth bacterium to edit RNA  – the part of the cell that allows genes to transform into proteins. This could result in the ability to target cancer cells by adjusting the proteins and rid of the cancer cells altogether.

The researchers explained how they engineered the C2c2 enzyme, an enzyme used to protect bacteria from being attacked from a virus. It’s this enzyme that is used to break certain RNA sequences – this is where the DNAs genetic code is stored ready to be turned into proteins.

CRISPR is therefore adding better control to current techniques involving RNA and could potentially replace weekly drugs with a CRISPR RNA-based therapy that can be administered less frequently.

“By manipulating RNA, researchers could influence gene activity as well as protein production in the body, allowing them to turn this process up, down, on or off without altering any genetic codes stored in the RNA,” said Feng Zhang, from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, who is involved in the study.

Zhang says early results are promising and is continuing further experiments to see if the process can be applied to human genes.

“C2c2 opens the door to an entirely new frontier of powerful CRISPR tools. There are an immense number of possibilities for C2c2 and we are excited to develop it into a platform for life science research and medicine.” 

The findings were published last week in the journal Science.

 

Sharing

Facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Filed Under: Front Page, Science

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Follow Us

Facebookrss

Search:

Recent Posts

  • NASA’s InSight spacecraft makes important course correction May 26, 2018
  • Scientists outraged at latest Trump decision May 15, 2018
  • Huge uproar erupts over major incident at Utah park May 13, 2018
  • Incredible moon discovery stuns scientists May 12, 2018
  • Authorities shocked by discovery about common painkiller May 6, 2018
  • Outrageous crocodile experiment stuns scientists May 5, 2018
  • Great Barrier Reef is too quiet, scientists say May 1, 2018
  • Massive Hiroshima bomb discovery shocks scientists May 1, 2018
  • Earth will be slammed by massive asteroid April 29, 2018
  • Teens are doing something incredibly alarming in schools April 29, 2018
  • Huge discovery in Tasmania stuns scientists April 28, 2018
  • Shocking discovery in New Jersey stuns authorities April 22, 2018
  • Huge volcanic explosion could wipe out the United States April 21, 2018
  • Huge controversy erupts over world’s hottest pepper April 15, 2018
  • SpaceX is about to do something astonishing April 15, 2018

Copyright © 2021 Jones Kilmartin Group, LLC · Metro Pro Theme On Genesis Framework · WordPress