Genome-editing tool could increase cancer risk
[PRESS RELEASE 2018-06-11] Therapeutic use of gene editing with the so-called CRISPR-Cas9 technique may inadvertently increase the risk of cancer, according to a new study from Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, and the University of Helsinki, Finland, published in Nature Medicine. Researchers say that more studies are required in order to guarantee the safety of these ‘molecular scissors’ for gene-editing therapies.CRISPR-Cas9 is a molecular machine first discovered in bacteria that can be programmed to go to an exact place in the genome, where it cuts the DNA. These precise ‘molecular