Broad star Feng Zhang un­veils a new CRISPR plat­form, edit­ing RNA and elim­i­nat­ing Alzheimer's threat — in cells

Broad In­sti­tute star sci­en­tist Feng Zhang is back in the spot­light, adapt­ing CRISPR tech­nol­o­gy in a shift from per­ma­nent­ly edit­ing DNA to re­vis­ing RNA — tem­porar­i­ly if need­ed. And he il­lus­trat­ed the promise of this ap­proach by de­ac­ti­vat­ing APOE4, which may be a tick­ing time bomb for peo­ple at risk of de­vel­op­ing Alzheimer’s.

CRISPR/Cas9 gene edit­ing tech has tak­en the lab by storm, in part be­cause of the work Zhang and his one-time col­leagues Jen­nifer Doud­na and Em­manuelle Char­p­en­tier ac­com­plished. They’re still scrap­ping over the patents to the orig­i­nal Cas9 work. But Zhang, who found­ed Beam Ther­a­peu­tics with David Liu and Kei­th Joung, has moved on in search of bet­ter tech, and in a pa­per pub­lished in Sci­ence, says they have made re­al progress in switch­ing from DNA to RNA edit­ing.

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