Cancer treatment using CRISPR-based Genome Editing System
Reporter: Irina Robu, PhD
CRISPR, stands for “clusters of regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats” is one of the biggest accomplishments in science of this decade and it is the simplest tool for altering DNA sequences and modifying gene functions. The technology is adapted form the natural defense mechanism of bacteria. Bacteria uses CRISPR-derived RNA and different Cas proteins to foil attacks by viruses and foreign bodies.
Scientists in the laboratory of Prof. Dan Peer, VP for R&D and Head of the Laboratory of Precision Nanomedicine at the Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research at TAU have shown that CRISPR/Cas9 system is efficient in treating metastatic cancer. They developed a novel lipid nanoparticle-based delivery system that targets cancer cells and ends them by genetic manipulation, called CRISPR-LNPs, which were published in published in November 2020 in Science Advances.
Professor Peer and his team of scientists chose two of the deadliest cancers: glioblastoma and metastatic ovarian cancer to prove that CRISPR genome editing system can be used to treat cancer effectively in a living animal. Since, glioblastoma is the most aggressive type of brain cancer with a life expectancy of 15 months after diagnosis, the researchers showed that the single treatment with CRISPR-LNPs doubled the average life expectancy of mice with glioblastoma tumors. At the same time, ovarian cancer is the most lethal cancer of female reproductive system and many patients are usually diagnosed at the advance stage of the disease. Treatment with CRISPR-LNPs in a metastatic ovarian cancer mice model increased their overall survival rate by 80%.
Despite CRISPR genome editing technology being capable of identifying and altering any genetic segment, clinical implementation is still in its infancy because the inability to accurately deliver the CRISPR to the target cells. In order to solve the issue, Professor Peer developed a delivery system that targets the DNA responsible for the cancer cells.
By demonstrating that the technology can treat two aggressive cancers, researchers open the technology to numerous new possibilities for treating other types of cancer. They intend to go on to experiments with blood cancers which are very interesting genetically.
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