New system for human genome editing has potential to increase power and precision of genome engineering
A team including the scientist who first harnessed the CRISPR-Cas9 system for mammalian genome editing has now identified a different CRISPR system with the potential for even simpler and more precise genome engineering. In a study published today in Cell, Feng Zhang and his colleagues at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, with co-authors Eugene Koonin at the National Institutes of Health, Aviv Regev of the Broad Institute and the MIT Department of Biology, and John van der Oost at Wageningen University, describe the unexpected biological features of this new system and demonstrate that it can be engineered to edit the genomes of human cells. “This has dramatic potential to advance genetic engineering,” says Eric Lander, director of the Broad Institute. “The paper not only reveals the function of a previously uncharacterized CRISPR system, but also shows that Cpf1 can be harnessed...