Genetic engineering

Prof. Feng Zhang has been named to STAT’s 2024 STATUS List, which highlights the leaders shaping the future of health and life sciences, reports Dialynn Dwyer for Boston.com. “Among the companies he’s co-founded is Editas Medicine, which as of late 2023 was now the official holder of patent rights to the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing tool used in the sickle cell therapy Casgevy, and Aera Therapeutics, which in February 2023 raised $193 million in venture funding to develop protein nanoparticles as a way of delivering gene editing,” Dwyer writes.

MIT researchers have “used an algorithm to sort through millions of genomes to find new, rare types of CRISPR systems that could eventually be adapted into genome-editing tools,” writes Sara Reardon for Nature. “We are just amazed at the diversity of CRISPR systems,” says Prof. Feng Zhang. “Doing this analysis kind of allows us to kill two birds with one stone: both study biology and also potentially find useful things.”

MIT researchers have discovered an RNA-guided DNA-cutting enzyme in eukaryotes, reports Science. “The researchers speculate that eukaryotic cells may have gained the newly identified editing genes from transposable elements—so-called jumping genes—they received from bacteria,” writes Science.

MIT researchers have identified a new biological editing system that could “potentially be even more precise than CRISPR gene editing,” reports Laura Baisas for Popular Science. The new system, based on a protein called Fanzor, is “the first programmable RNA-guided system discovered in eukaryotes,” Baisas notes.

Boston Globe reporter Ryan Cross spotlights Chroma Medicine, a biotech startup co-founded by MIT researchers that is “developing a new class of gene editing technologies that could control how our genetic code is read without changing the code itself.” Cross explains that Chroma Medicine’s technology could “have broad applications for treating both rare and common diseases.”

Aera Therapeutics, founded by Prof. Feng Zhang, is working to “debut a type of protein nanoparticle that it believes can be used to ferry all sorts of genetic medicines around the body,” reports Lisa Jarvis for Bloomberg.

Prof. Feng Zhang founded Aera Therapeutics, a startup working to deliver curative genetic medicine to hard-to-reach parts of the body, reports Ryan Cross for The Boston Globe. “If Aera’s approach works in people, it could broaden the reach of genetic therapies, which currently have limited clinical applications – partly because there aren’t enough methods for getting those medicines to hone in on the right cells,” writes Cross.  

Prof. Kevin Esvelt speaks with New Scientist reporter Michael Le Page about his work outlining a roadmap to help counter the risk posed by pandemic terrorism. “The message is, this is serious but this is totally solvable,” says Esvelt.

Scientists from MIT, Duke and Stanford have developed a new technique to make gene therapies safer and more effective, reports Ryan Cross for The Boston Globe. “It’s about making these therapies much smarter and programmable,” says Jonathan S. Gootenberg, a research scientist at the McGovern Institute.

Boston Globe reporter David Abel spotlights the Mice Against Ticks project, which is aimed at preventing tick-borne diseases such as Lyme disease through immunizing mice.  “With so many people suffering from Lyme every single day, which is an awful disease, we need a solution urgently,” explains graduate student and Mice Against Ticks research director Joanna Buchthal. “This offers a real, if revolutionary, way to tackle the problem.”

Prof. Kevin Esvelt writes for The Boston Globe about the need for transparency surrounding gene-editing research. “We should establish transparent, publicly accessible standards to help determine whether, when, and how research that could impact everyone should proceed,” Esvelt explains.

A new center established at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research is aimed at accelerating the development of novel therapies and technologies, writes Katie Jennings for Forbes. The hope is that “we can identify common pathways, either a common molecular pathway that's a chokepoint for a therapy or a common group of neurons or neural systems,” says Prof. Robert DeSimone, director of the McGovern Institute.

Boston Globe reporter Felice Freyer writes about the K. Lisa Yang and Hock E. Tan Center for Molecular Therapeutics in Neuroscience, which was established at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research thanks to a $28 million gift from philanthropist Lisa Yang and MIT alumnus Hock Tan ’75. “The center will develop tools to precisely target the malfunctioning genes and neurons underpinning brain disorders,” writes Freyer.

TIME reporter Alice Park writes that in a Nature commentary, an international group of scientists has called for a temporary ban on studies using gene-editing on human embryos. “Our question is, how should nations make decisions about technologies like gene editing going forward?” says Prof. Eric Lander, director of the Broad Institute and one of the authors of the commentary.

Associated Press reporter Malcom Ritter writes that an international team of scientists – including a number of MIT researchers – has called for a moratorium on making babies with genetically engineered DNA. “The moratorium would allow time for discussion of technical, scientific, societal and ethical issues that must be considered,” explains Ritter.