Your missing links are here (30 April 2020)

Top Picks

• First Chinese CRISPR trial shows promising signs of safety. You can find our interview with one of the study leaders here.
• US researchers team up to develop a rapid (< 40 mins) SARS-CoV-2 detection assay based on CRISPR-Cas12. Read more about the DETECTR assay here.
• Epivax and Entos Pharmaceuticals join forces to develop a DNA-based vaccine for COVID-19.
• Researchers from the US have developed CARMEN - a miniaturised, scalable and highly-multiplexed nucleic acid detection assay that uses CRISPR-Cas13 technology. The hope is that this assay can be used for rapid disease surveillance - timely given the current COVID-19 pandemic!
• Japanese researchers use CRISPR-Cas9 to find a new protein that may be implicated in Alzheimer disease.

Industry

• Intellia Therapeutics is to present new preclinical data from its CRISPR-Cas9 programs at this year’s annual meeting of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy. The company has ex vivo and in vivo programs in various diseases and expects to submit an IND filing for a new CRISPR’ed T cell therapy for acute myeloid leukaemia next year.
• Editas Medicine is getting ready to submit an IND for EDIT-201, an allogeneic natural killer cell therapy for solid tumour cancers. The company uses CRISPR technology to develop novel cell therapies and plans to release preclinical data on EDIT-201 later this year.
• MilliporeSigma to open second manufacturing facility in California for commercial viral vector and gene therapy production to meet future demands for gene therapy.

Research

• Detailed experimental protocol for Discover-Seq – for non-biased CRISPR-Cas off-target identification.
• In vivo-wide CRISPR screen reveals RNA-binding protein Staufen2 as a key regulator of myeloid leukemia.
• Proof-of-concept study in mouse models and human donor tissue finds that CRISPR-Cas9 may cure glaucoma with a single injection.
• CRISPR-Cas9-edited patient-derived stem cells successfully reverse diabetes in mice. In case you missed it, you can find our interview with the lead researcher here.

Reviews and Round-ups

• Interesting opinion piece, sharing thoughts on why Brexit could kickstart CRISPR and GMO in the UK.
• We came across a useful tracking resource that allows you to see which human/health products and processes related to gene editing are approved or in development and their regulatory status. You can check it out here.

Heh, huh, wow

• Interesting podcast interview with the producers of CRISPR documentary, Human Nature, which recently aired in the US. You can also find a detailed review of the documentary here.