European GMO-Free Regions Conference

Editing tool is found to be prone to making off-target "nicks" in DNA

The gene-editing tool known as CRISPR-Cas12a or Cpf1 has been viewed as a better choice than other Cas editing tools because it was believed to be more precise and less prone to making off-target cuts in DNA.

But a new paper shows that Cpf1 is not as clean or specific as touted. The researchers employed in vitro assays using a vast collection of synthesized DNA molecules containing variations on the editing site sequence. They found that Cpf1 was highly prone to making off-target single-strand cuts, or "nicks", in the double-stranded DNA molecules. Off-target double-strand DNA cuts were also found, albeit at a lower frequency than the single-strand nicks.

Monsanto will pay a $39.5 million class action settlement for falsely claiming that Roundup weed-killer targets an enzyme that is only found in plants.

The issue was that Monsanto promoted Roundup’s safety for people and pets by claiming that glyphosate, the active weed-killing chemical, targets an enzyme that is only found in plants.

The lawsuit claimed that the enzyme is actually found in people and pets, where it is essential for maintaining the immune system, digestion, and brain function.

By Neal Baer, a television writer and producer and lecturer on global health and social medicine at Harvard Medical School.

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As a television writer and producer of “ER,” “SVU,” and most recently “Designated Survivor,” I draw on audiences’ love-hate relationship with uncertainty to play on their emotions. I know that audiences love plots riven with unexpected twists and turns.

When we’ve emerged on the other side of the pandemic, Covid-19 will someday make a good story. But I worry that CRISPR could make Covid-19 look like child’s play.

CRISPR is a new genetic tool that lets scientists cut out a DNA sequence in an organism’s genome and replace it with another. The hope is that this ingenious scissors-and-glue system will be used to treat devastating genetic diseases like sickle cell anemia and beta thalassemia.

But there’s a dark side to CRISPR. A scientist or biohacker with basic lab know-how could conceivably buy DNA sequences and, using CRISPR, edit them to make an even more panic-inducing bacteria or virus. What’s to stop a rogue scientist from using CRISPR to conjure up an even deadlier version of Ebola or a more transmissible SARS?