Penn sci­en­tists cor­rect ge­net­ic flaw in mice fe­tus­es, ex­pand­ing in utero CRISPR reach to lung dis­eases

Re­mem­ber when re­searchers ap­plied CRISPR to ed­it genes of mice fe­tus­es while they are still in the womb, spar­ing them from death by liv­er dis­ease? The same team from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia has now test­ed the same idea — al­beit with a dif­fer­ent tech­nique — in ge­net­ic lung dis­eases.

In the bur­geon­ing world of gene edit­ing spawned by CRISPR, in utero treat­ment can be seen as a mid­point be­tween ear­ly em­bryo edit­ing (which pass­es the ge­net­ic al­ter­ations to fu­ture gen­er­a­tions) and edit­ing af­ter birth, which can be too late for pa­tients with cer­tain lethal dis­eases.

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