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This will likely not be an impediment to treatments based on CRISPR. The study has been available in preprint form for ~6 months on biorxiv [0]. At least some o
by nickles 8y ago
This will likely not be an impediment to treatments based on CRISPR. The study has been available in preprint form for ~6 months on biorxiv [0]. At least some of the companies researching CRISPR were aware of this issue at the time the paper was released. It has since been mitigated, as specified at the bottom of the article. From Gaetan Burgio's tweets:
"Published now in @NatureMedicine on #CRISPR & Immunity to SpCas9. 6 months has past since the preprint was online & it is a long time in the CRISPR field. Since then additional work showed how to circumvented this by modifying Cas9 protein or using Cas9 orthologs. So No panic !" [1]
[0] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/04/04/295139 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/04/04/295139
[1] https://twitter.com/GaetanBurgio/status/1057206850213441542 https://twitter.com/GaetanBurgio/status/1057206850213441542
- meowface 8y agoIt's really amazing that humanity is at the stage where we're intentionally evading our own immunity to bacterial components so we can repurpose the components to help ourselves.
- naravara 8y agoWhat if it’s actually just time travelers coming back to code the immunity into us to protect us from the unintended consequences of gene hacking? (This is a joke, in case that needs clarifying)
- kowdermeister 8y agoIt's already like hacking some alien computer in a short amount of time :)
- kitd 8y agoThere's got to be a great scifi story in there somewhere.
- justfor1comment 8y agoThis is the plot of the Trunks storyline in Dragon Ball Z.
- markatkinson 8y agoI know right. I also just came from an article that had to use an electron microscope to photograph the accelerometer in our phones. I never realised how small things have gotten.
- Lukas_Skywalker 8y ago"iPhones are allergic to helium" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18340693 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18340693
- wiz21c 8y agobut it's a bit sad that it can't intentionally help it to handle cancer.
- dotancohen 8y agoYet. By the way, "cancer" is a class of diseases, not a single disease to treat, and many of them currently have CRISPR-derived treatments being actively developed.
- patates 8y agoLooking forward to the days that even the worst kinds of cancerous tissues would be a drug or two away from complete destruction. I hope that at one point, when someone asks about what would happen if a single maintainer of a project gets cancer tomorrow or gets hit by a bus, the answer would be, "well she/he can take a pill, and, what is this 'bus' thing you oldies keep joking about anyway?" :)
- meko 8y agoCancer is my worst fear and has also killed so many of my family and loved ones. It's a slow painful death where you get progressively weaker. I really do hope there is some light at the end of the tunnel there.
- wiz21c 8y agoI'm no expert. Do you believe it's just a question of time ?
- EpicEng 8y agoWell, the experts do at least.
- ImaCake 8y agoI think this is obvious to anyone familiar with bacteria and immunity. The headlines will go for the 'CRISPR is dead" angle, but the work arounds are simple and relatively easy to implement. I think the article is still extremely valuable. It shows that, yes, we target CRISPR just like any other microbiome protein hanging out in a mucus membrane. But it also shows that it's not a threat (or an indicator of a threat).