MIT gene edit­ing spin­out launch­es with $213M to write the 'fi­nal chap­ter in ge­nom­ic med­i­cine'

When John Finn agreed to meet two young MIT sci­en­tists in the sum­mer of 2021, they ex­plained how they had de­vel­oped a twist on CRISPR gene edit­ing tech­nol­o­gy, one that could drag and drop large se­quences of DNA, thou­sands of let­ters long, in­to pre­cise lo­ca­tions of the genome.

At the time, gene edit­ing tools were best for mak­ing small tweaks to DNA. The MIT sci­en­tists, Omar Abu­dayyeh and Jonathan Gooten­berg, said their in­ven­tion could up­load whole genes. And un­like vi­ral vec­tor-based gene ther­a­pies, it could con­trol ex­act­ly where those genes go.

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