BBC News reporter Michelle Roberts writes that MIT researchers have fine-tuned the CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing system to make it safer and more accurate. This development is "vital if it [CRISPR] is to be used in humans to cure inherited diseases or inborn errors,” explains Roberts.
Alexandra Ossola writes for Popular Science that MIT researchers have found a molecule that could make the CRISPR gene-editing technique more precise. The new molecule “makes the editing process easier to control and could create new possibilities for how scientists can edit DNA in the future.”
Boston Globe reporter Sharon Begley writes that Prof. Feng Zhang has uncovered enzymes that could be used to edit genes more precisely than the proteins currently used by CRISPR. Begley explains that the discovery means that CRISPR could become an “even more powerful tool to reveal the genetic defects underlying diseases and to perhaps repair them.”
In an article for Wired, Sarah Zhang writes that MIT researchers have identified a new gene-editing system that could prove more effective than current techniques. The new system involves, “a different protein that also edits human DNA, and, in some cases, it may work even better than Cas9,” the protein used for DNA editing.
Lloyd Mallinson reports for Boston.com that researchers from MIT and Harvard have discovered the link between obesity and genetics. “The uncovered cellular circuits may allow us to dial a metabolic master switch for both risk and non-risk individuals, as a means to counter environmental, lifestyle, or genetic contributors to obesity,” explains Prof. Manolis Kellis.
Prof. Manolis Kellis speaks with BBC reporter Andrew Peach about the discovery of a genetic “master switch” inside fat cells. This switch “decides whether every time we have a meal the excess calories will be stored as fat or whether they will actually be burned away as heat,” explains Kellis.
Prof. Manolis Kellis and his colleagues have discovered a metabolic switch linked to obesity, reports Chukwuma Muanya for The Guardian. “Obesity has traditionally been seen as the result of an imbalance between the amount of food we eat and how much we exercise, but this view ignores the contribution of genetics to each individual’s metabolism,” explains Kellis.
“Researchers at MIT and Harvard Medical School have analysed the genetics behind obesity,” writes Natasha Hinde for The Huffington Post. “They discovered a new pathway that controls human metabolism by prompting fat cells to store fat or burn it away.”
Andy Coghlan reports for New Scientist that MIT researchers have found a gene that determines whether fat cells store or burn energy. “You could say we’ve found fat cells’ radiator, and how to turn it up or down,” says Prof. Manolis Kellis.
Alice Park reports for TIME that researchers from MIT and Harvard have identified a pathway that controls how much fat cells burn or store. “What these results say is that we can reprogram all the major fat stores in humans by intervening in this particular pathway,” explains Prof. Manolis Kellis.
Researchers from MIT and Harvard have discovered how the key gene linked to obesity makes people fat, reports the Associated Press. The study revealed that “a faulty version of the gene causes energy from food to be stored as fat rather than burned.”
Boston Globe reporter Kevin Hartnett writes that MIT researchers have shown it is impossible to create a faster version of the “edit distance” algorithm, which is used to compare the genomes of different species. Hartnett writes that the finding “has been greeted with something like relief among computer scientists.”
Kathleen McKenna of The Boston Globe writes that Professor Alexander Rich, whose research confirmed DNA’s double-helix structure, died at 90 on April 27. Shuguang Zhang, associate director of the Center for Biomedical Engineering at MIT, said that Rich was “warm, wonderful, and open-minded.”
Washington Post reporter Martin Weil writes that Prof. Alexander Rich, who was known for his work with molecular biology, passed away on April 27. Rich’s work on hybridization, the pairing of two single strands of DNA or RNA, “is regarded as integral to creating much of modern biotechnology, with applications in diagnostics, forensics, genealogy and gene sequencing.”
Prof. Alexander Rich, a noted biophysicist known for his work investigating the structure of DNA and RNA, died on April 27, writes Denise Gellene for The New York Times. “I can think of no one else who has made as many major contributions to all facets of modern molecular biology,” said University of Maryland Prof. Robert C. Gallo.