Re­ly­ing on an ul­tra-rare vari­ant, David Liu un­veils a new ap­proach to edit­ing sick­le cell

There are now at least five dif­fer­ent ap­proach­es to cur­ing sick­le cell in or near­ing hu­man test­ing from at least eight dif­fer­ent com­pa­nies or aca­d­e­m­ic cen­ters. But re­searchers have not stopped look­ing for im­prove­ments.

David Liu, the co-in­ven­tor of base edit­ing and co-founder of Beam Ther­a­peu­tics, un­veiled in Na­ture Tues­day a new ap­proach for us­ing gene edit­ing to turn pa­tients’ sick­ling he­mo­glo­bin in­to a healthy form of the pro­tein. If it plays out in hu­mans, ex­perts say, the strat­e­gy could of­fer a more di­rect and po­ten­tial­ly safer way of treat­ing the de­bil­i­tat­ing ge­net­ic dis­ease.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER