Researchers developed a CRISPR adenine base editor delivered via a GalNAc-lipid nanoparticle that makes a single DNA edit in liver cells to inactivate ANGPTL3, a gene linked to high LDL cholesterol and triglycerides. In nonhuman primates, a single infusion cut circulating ANGPTL3 protein by over 90%, an effect sustained for three years, while animal models showed LDL-C reductions of 40-50% and triglyceride reductions of 50-70%, with no detectable off-target edits found in vitro.
nature.com
· 2026-11-06
Prime Medicine has treated the first patient in a clinical trial using prime editing, a precise gene-editing technique, to correct a mutation in liver cells directly inside the body. The target is Wilson disease, caused by mutations in the ATP7B gene that leave excess copper to build up and damage the liver and nervous system. The company says it expects to report initial trial results next year.
nature.com
· 2026-10-22
Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis used Ube3a-deficient mice, a standard model of Angelman syndrome, along with a newly engineered Asns-mutant mouse line, to study neuronal stress signaling. They report that sustained activation of a cellular stress pathway in neurons contributes to the behavioral and neurological phenotypes seen in the Angelman mouse model.
nature.com
· 2026-10-21
Mathematicians including Tristan Buckmaster of New York University say that after working for about a year on a fluid-dynamics puzzle related to the Navier-Stokes problem, OpenAI announced its agents had solved it the day after Buckmaster posted his own progress. Scientists say this is one of at least two recent cases in five weeks where AI companies reached or announced results on questions researchers were already pursuing, prompting some to limit sharing unpublished work with AI tools.
nature.com
· 2026-10-08
Researchers from two independent teams, publishing in Science and Cell, used CRISPR-based gene editing to introduce and track mutations in dividing mouse embryo cells, reconstructing cell lineage maps. One team traced a two-week-old embryo back to a single fertilized egg, while the other recorded most cell divisions during organ formation. The work echoes John Sulston's 1980s cell-by-cell mapping of the roundworm C. elegans, but extends the approach to mammals, whose development involves billions of cells and external influences rather than a fixed pattern.
nature.com
· 2026-10-08
Researchers have developed a gene-editing approach that restricts edits to particular cells depending on their position or context within tissue, rather than editing indiscriminately. The technique aims to limit changes to only the intended cell population, reducing effects on surrounding cells.
nature.com
· 2026-10-02
Anthropic announced on September 23 that its Claude AI model, running roughly 950 agents simultaneously, identified a gene-editing enzyme system with properties similar to Crispr within 21.5 hours. The company says the system's function remains unknown, and only one physical experiment has been reported so far in a non-peer-reviewed technical paper.
wired.com
· 2026-09-29
MIT Technology Review says it has finalized its annual list of 10 climate tech companies making progress in energy storage, nuclear power and transportation, set for publication on October 6. Separately, Anthropic announced its AI molecular biology lab had flagged an uncatalogued enzyme pattern it likened to a precursor of CRISPR, but several biologists disputed whether this qualifies as a genuine discovery, with one saying his team had already found the same pattern.
technologyreview.com
· 2026-09-29
Norwich-based Tropic has developed a gene-edited banana that resists browning for an extra day or two after peeling, using CRISPR-Cas9 to suppress three copies of the gene behind the polyphenol oxidase enzyme. CEO Gilad Gershon said the fruit is already grown in Latin America and has regulatory approval in 10 countries including Japan, Brazil and the Philippines, and is now nearing UK supermarket shelves.
science.slashdot.org
· 2026-09-29
Anthropic reported that its Claude AI system, running 950 agents over roughly 21 hours, sifted through about 200,000 reverse transcriptase samples and identified a previously unseen CRISPR-like enzyme system. Human scientists later confirmed the enzyme was genuinely novel, with MIT and Broad Institute professor Feng Zhang calling the RNA-repeat arrays linked to reverse transcriptases 'genuinely intriguing' and worthy of further study. Anthropic says human involvement was limited to prompting the AI and conducting lab verification.
cnet.com
· 2026-09-28
Anthropic said a system of 950 AI agents spent 21 hours scanning DNA sequence databases and flagged an uncatalogued repeating pattern around a known enzyme, comparing it to the pattern that led to CRISPR. Biologists pushed back, including a biologist whose viral post was endorsed by Eli Lilly's CEO, arguing that spotting a gene cluster is far easier than determining what it actually does. A University of Copenhagen researcher who regularly used Claude said his team had already identified the same pattern, raising questions about whether Anthropic's system had drawn on his prior work.
technologyreview.com
· 2026-09-28
Researchers, including Ying Zhang at Wuhan University and Shannon Miller at Scripps Research, are developing a range of genome-editing technologies that go beyond standard CRISPR-Cas9, some building on it and others operating independently. These newer methods are designed to insert or replace larger stretches of DNA, a task CRISPR-Cas9 struggles with, though the field remains in early stages.
nature.com
· 2026-09-28
GoKawiil