Sharmila Nikapota, the mother of a child with a rare genetic disorder, has high hopes for gene editing.
"For us this technology holds the unimaginable dream of a cure," she says.
Her 13-year-old daughter Sohana has spent her entire life covered in painful blisters, the result of a condition called recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa.
A new study shows that gene editing using CRISPR/Cas9 technology can work in rhesus monkey embryos.
The results, published in the current issue of Human Molecular Genetics, open the door for pursuing gene editing in nonhuman primates as models for new therapies, including pharmacological, gene-, and stem cell-based therapies, says Keith Latham, animal science professor at Michigan State University and lead author of the study.
American Museum of Natural History Explore the natural world with Science Bulletins; our documentary Feature Stories, Data Visualizations, and News updates focus on recent discoveries and new technologies in astrophysics, Earth science, biodiversity, and human health and evolution.
Your genome, every human's genome, consists of a unique DNA sequence of A's, T's, C's and G's that tell your cells how to operate. Thanks to technological advances, scientists are now able to know the sequence of letters that makes up an individual genome relatively quickly and inexpensively. Mark J. Kiel takes an in-depth look at the science behind the sequence.