Your missing links are here (21 February 2020)

Top picks

• RNA editing is taking off. CRISPR make room.
• Interview with Carl June on CRISPR, CAR–T and how the Vietnam War dropped him into medicine.
• Using a CRISPR–Cas9 genome-wide screen to uncover unique T-cell, that gives hope for universal cancer therapies.
• Should we rewrite our DNA? The Guardian and Wellcome look at the future of CRISPR and genome editing. Podcast and video - The Gene Gap - informs and asks You to share your views on how we should use it?

Clinical Trials and regulation

• CRISPR gene editing appears safe in the first US Human Safety Trial. Using genetically-edited cells to supercharge the immune system caused no adverse effects in cancer patients. It's too soon to tell if it can be a cure.
• Perspective by Doudna and Hamilton: CRISPR-Cas9 gene-edited T cells show safety and long-term engraftment in humans

Research

• Building better base editors, new research from the Liu-lab brings base-editors that make fewer off-targets and access more genome locations.
• A new CRISPR-based tool can probe and control several genetic circuits at once.
• A CRISPR cure for cystic fibrosis?
• Unwanted CRISPR-Cas9 duplications and warning to researchers.

Safety

• Temporal control of CRISPR gene editing systems by reversibly masking gRNA.
• The kill-switch for CRISPR that could make gene-editing safer.

Vision and opinion

• Great piece by Yangyang Cheng gathers the threads that connect CRISPR-baby scientist He Jiankui, Chinese hospitals and patient violence, the coronavirus and lockdown of Wuhan, politics and his family history.
• From mice to dogs, and someday man: George Church's gene therapy cocktail for aging-related diseases.

Industry

• BioMarin's pioneering hemophilia gene therapy secures priority review by the FDA.
• Gene therapy pioneer Kathy High has left the drug giant Roche just two months after it purchased the company she founded, Spark Therapeutics, for $4.3 billion.
• Belgian Biotech Raises €50M to Make Gene Therapy Manufacturing Cheaper.
• The European Patent Office (EPO) has affirmed a patent issued to CRISPR pioneer Emmanuelle Charpentier, rejecting arguments filed in opposition by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
• Base Editing Drug Developer, Beam TherapeuticsRaises $180M in IPO.
• Global CRISPR Genome Editing Market Set For Rapid Growth.

Uh ah wow

• Curious about the new online resource - The Global Gene Regulation Tracker - from the Genetic Literacy Project? Listen to The Talking Biotech podcast.
• UK Parliamentary Office publishes brief on human germline genome editing.