Regulating RNA interference by modifying RNA backbone with amides

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Professor Rozners and his team use nucleic acid chemistry to improve RNA-based technologies, modifying RNA backbone with amides

Professor Eriks Rozners and colleagues at Binghamton University in New York, USA, are using innovative nucleic acid chemistry to modify RNA-based technologies such as RNA interference (RNAi) and Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) to enhance their utility in molecular biology. These technologies suffer from off-target effects that limit their clinical utility. By replacing phosphates in the backbone with […]

How to make a CRISPR cow

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Genome editing offers an opportunity to introduce useful genetic traits into livestock breeding programmes. However, it has proven difficult to insert large DNA fragments into livestock embryos using the CRISPR-Cas9 system. Dr Alison Van Eenennaam and Dr Joseph Owen, of the University of California, Davis, employed their knowledge of bovine embryogenesis and DNA repair pathways, and the help of a […]

Directed evolution of CRISPR-Cas9 to increase specificity

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Building upon previous CRISPR research and gene editing methods found in nature, Dr Lee and colleagues from ToolGen have developed a method of screening multiple Cas9 variants. Their method seeks to quickly and effectively screen many mutations of Cas9 to find one which possesses maximised on-target activity and minimised off-target activity. After successful development and implementation of the system, Sniper-Screen, […]