BioCentury
ARTICLE | Translation in Brief

A cutting diagnosis

How a new Cas enzyme extends CRISPR to diagnostics

April 27, 2017 6:51 PM UTC

CRISPR pioneer Feng Zhang has expanded the use of the gene editing technology to diagnostics by using an alternative cutting enzyme, and showed it can be used to create a sensitive tool for point-of-care detection of Zika or Dengue. The invention adds to the patent estate that Zhang is steadily building around CRISPR and its applications.

Zhang, a core institute member at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and founding scientific advisor of gene editing company Editas Medicine Inc. (NASDAQ:EDIT), led one of two teams that originally discovered how to use CRISPR-Cas9 for gene editing in human cells. His group was awarded the first patent on the technology, whose claims were recently upheld in a patent interference proceeding...