Chinese scientists claim they have developed an infrared light-based, remotely-controlled gene-editing tool that can target and kill cancer cells with precision.
A team led by Professor Song Yujun from the Nanjing University’s College of Engineering and Applied Sciences designed an infrared light-responsive nano-carrier to be used for the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing tool, which will have great potential in cancer therapeutics.
The strong penetrability of infrared light enables scientists to precisely control the gene editing tool in deep human tissue.
The CRISPR-Cas9 technique allows genetic materials to be added, removed or altered in particular locations in the human genome. But it remains a challenge in precision medicine worldwide due to the off-target effect of the gene-editing tool, like causing mutation or even cancer in healthy cells due to the inaccurate excision of genes.
The new technique developed by Song’s team has been tested on lab rats with tumors, whose progression was delayed about 20 days after the rat was treated with the new technique.
“Using infrared light, the new technique can precisely alter or cut the designated spot in the genome, improving the target effect of the existing gene-editing tool,” Song told the People’s Daily.
But he said the new technique would still be far from human clinical trials due to concerns like the toxic effect of nano materials and that his team also needed to determine the amount of infrared light needed for curing cancers in humans. A thorough ethics review is also mandated by Chinese authorities.
Last year, Chinese biologist He Jiankui used the CRISPR-Cas9 tool and altered the CCR5 gene of human embryos in a morally deplorable experiment that led to the birth of the world’s first gene-edited babies.
China has tightened scrutiny of biomedical technology after the birth of the gene-edited twins shocked academia. The country updated a law on biomedical technology in February, which mandated high-risk clinical research projects including gene-editing must be approved by the National Health Commission, with both academic and ethics reviews as the prerequisite for clinical trials.
Good write-up, I¦m regular visitor of one¦s site, maintain up the excellent operate, and It’s going to be a regular visitor for a lengthy time.
I conceive other website proprietors should take this site as an model, very clean and wonderful user genial pattern.
I’m truly enjoying the design and layout of your website. It’s a very easy on the eyes which makes it much more enjoyable for me to come here and visit more often. Did you hire out a designer to create your theme? Superb work!
What’s Taking place i’m new to this, I stumbled upon this I have found It positively useful and it has aided me out loads. I hope to give a contribution & assist different users like its aided me. Great job.
I’m still learning from you, as I’m trying to achieve my goals. I absolutely love reading everything that is posted on your blog.Keep the stories coming. I enjoyed it!
Some really quality content on this internet site, bookmarked.
so much fantastic information on here, : D.
I have been surfing online greater than 3 hours today, yet I never discovered any attention-grabbing article like yours. It is beautiful price enough for me. In my opinion, if all site owners and bloggers made excellent content material as you probably did, the web shall be much more helpful than ever before.
It’s appropriate time to make some plans for the future and it’s time to be happy. I have read this post and if I could I want to suggest you some interesting things or suggestions. Perhaps you can write next articles referring to this article. I want to read more things about it!
Greetings… your blog is very interesting and beautifully written.
My brother suggested I might like this web site. He was once entirely right. This put up truly made my day. You can not consider just how so much time I had spent for this information! Thanks!
Makes sense to me.
I have to express my appreciation to this writer for bailing me out of this type of predicament. Right after researching through the the net and seeing ideas that were not productive, I figured my life was well over. Living devoid of the answers to the problems you have solved through your good short post is a critical case, as well as the kind that would have adversely damaged my career if I had not noticed your website. Your own capability and kindness in controlling every part was important. I’m not sure what I would’ve done if I hadn’t come upon such a step like this. I am able to at this point look ahead to my future. Thank you very much for this impressive and result oriented help. I will not hesitate to recommend your site to any individual who ought to have guide on this topic.
Wow, superb blog layout! How long have you been blogging for? you make blogging look easy. The overall look of your web site is fantastic, as well as the content!
I like what you guys are up also. Such smart work and reporting! Carry on the superb works guys I have incorporated you guys to my blogroll. I think it’ll improve the value of my site 🙂
I am no longer positive where you are getting your information, however good topic. I needs to spend some time finding out more or figuring out more. Thanks for great info I used to be looking for this info for my mission.
Hello, I think your blog might be having browser compatibility issues. When I look at your blog site in Firefox, it looks fine but when opening in Internet Explorer, it has some overlapping. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up! Other then that, fantastic blog!
Nice post. I learn something more challenging on different blogs everyday. It will always be stimulating to read content from other writers and practice a little something from their store. I’d prefer to use some with the content on my blog whether you don’t mind. Natually I’ll give you a link on your web blog. Thanks for sharing.
Some really choice blog posts on this internet site, saved to my bookmarks.
I have been checking out a few of your stories and i can claim pretty clever stuff. I will definitely bookmark your website.