Podcasts about innovative genomics institute

The creation of a landmark gene editing drug used to treat a baby with a rare genetic mutation which could help transform personalized medicine. Blood tests showed baby KJ had sky-high levels of ammonia, a toxic substance the body usually expels. The root cause was his genes - or more particularly a specific gene mutation. The race was on to try and treat him before his condition took a firm hold. His doctors came up with a radical solution - for the first time ever, they designed and applied a gene-editing drug in record time, specifically for him. Have we seen breakthrough in preventing genetic diseases? With Fyodor Urnov, a professor in the Molecular and Cell Biology Department at the University of California, Virginijus Šikšnys professor at the Life Science Center of Vilnius University, Waseem Qasim from the UCL Institute of Child Health in Great Ormond Street Hospital in London and Jennifer Doudna, Professor, University of California, Berkeley and founder of the Innovative Genomics Institute. Presented by Tanya Beckett. Produced by Bob Howard. Researched by Mauve Schaffer Edited by Tara McDermott.

Dana Foss and Ross Wilson are the cofounders of Editpep, a biotech startup focused on developing CRISPR-based therapeutics. They are using a proprietary peptide-based delivery platform that enables targeted delivery to specific cell types, particularly for hard-to-reach areas like the brain. While Dana Foss is the CEO, Ross Wilson is also an Assistant Adjunct Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology and also the Director of Therapeutic Delivery at the Innovative Genomics Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. He is one of those very few academics that co-founded a startup and is very active in building Editpep. Ross explains how he does it all so well! Dana was  previously a postdoc in Ross Wilson's lab, where she developed the technology. Ross was a postdoc in Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna's lab. Now he has his own lab and collaborates with Jennifer Doudna at the Innovative Genomics Institute.  In this episode of lab to startup, we will explore their initial decisions that lead to launching the startup; existing CRISPR delivery technologies, their challenges, and then do a deep dive into their delivery technology. opportunities,; fundraising efforts, and their future goals. Shownotes https://www.editpep.bio/ CRISPR Delivery problem and current solutions Existing solutions like AV, LNPs are mostly limited to mice Ribonucleoprotein, a complex of RNA and protein (RNP): Technology deep dive Outsiders bringing in fresh perspective Dana transitioning out of academia: working on a shared goal Hard to shepard the technology towards the patient by depending on a third party Self motivation and gumption: Ways to move technologies out of the lab Early stage co-founder chemistry Ross's innovative role being an academic and entrepreneur Fundraising journey Open mindedness to non-traditional investors Investors: Berkeley Skydeck,  Lindonlight Collective Filters for selecting investors Getting to market: Parallels from other delivery companies like Alnylam Counterintuitive decisions Future goals Connecting the dots

The gut microbiome, which consists of trillions of bacteria, viruses, and fungi, plays a crucial role in our health. However, there is still much to learn about this complex ecosystem. On this episode we talk with experts who tell us where the science is—how much we know, and how much we don't. Two companies, Bloom Science and Seres Therapeutics, are leveraging the microbiome to develop new therapeutics. The potential of the microbiome is vast, and further research and technological advancements will continue to unlock its benefits.

Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna made not just any scientific breakthrough, but uncovered a tool that promises unparalleled control over DNA - the core of existence teetering on the brink between amazing potential and great danger.  Hear the fascinating discussion between Jennifer Doudna and Merlin Crossley as they discuss the mentors who fuelled her scientific passion, the collaborations that led to her incredible discoveries, her experience as a leading woman in STEM, and how her Innovative Genomics Institute is enabling equitable access to CRISPR technology. Presented by the UNSW Centre for Ideas and UNSW Science.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From gene and cell therapies, to the use of CRISPR and other precision engineering technologies, this episode dives into the opportunities and challenges of the emerging field of advanced therapies. On Discovery Matters this week, Dodi and Conor are joined by Daria Donati, Chief Scientific Officer of Genomic Medicine at Cytiva, as well as Jen Moody, Vice President of External Innovation of Genomic Medicines at Danaher, to discuss the science, progress, and potential of advanced therapeutics. Demaris Mills, Group Executive of Genomic Medicines at IDT, and experts Fyodor Urnov, Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Director of Technology & Translation at the Innovative Genomics Institute, cover the technologies used in gene and cell therapies as well as CRISPR to deliver powerful and precise treatments aiming for a healthier future.

The gut microbiome, which consists of trillions of bacteria, viruses, and fungi, plays a crucial role in our health. However, there is still much to learn about this complex ecosystem. On this episode we talk with experts who tell us where the science is—how much we know, and how much we don't. Two companies, Bloom Science and Seres Therapeutics, are leveraging the microbiome to develop new therapeutics. The potential of the microbiome is vast, and further research and technological advancements will continue to unlock its benefits.Follow us on LinkedIn, X, Facebook and Instagram. Visit us at https://www.bio.org/

Earlier this year the Innovative Genomics Institute and the life sciences tools conglomerate Danaher launched a collaborative center to develop genome-editing therapies for rare and other diseases. The Danaher-IGI Beacon for CRISPR Cures seeks to address hundreds of diseases with a unified research, development, and regulatory approach. Their goal is to create a new model for the development of genomic medicines. We spoke to Fyodor Urnov, IGI's director of technology and translation and director of the new Beacon center, about the evolution of gene editing technology, the challenges of a platform approach, and how the organization plans to share what it learns.

Last month the FDA approved a new treatment for sickle cell disease, the first medical therapy to use CRISPR gene editing technology. It works by identifying the gene or genes causing the disorder, modifying those genes and then returning them to the patient's body.There are now two gene therapies offered by pharmaceutical companies for sickle cell disease: Casgevy from Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics, and Lyfgenia from BlueBird Bio. But prices for these one-time treatments are steep: Casgevy costs $2.2 million per patient and Lyfgenia $3.1 million.Both promise a full cure, which would be life-changing for patients with this debilitating condition. Over 100,000 Americans, mostly of African descent, have sickle cell disease.This milestone raises more questions: What will be the next disease that CRISPR can help cure? And is it possible to reduce the costs of gene therapy treatments?Ira talks with Dr. Fyodor Urnov, professor of molecular and cell biology and scientific director of technology and translation at the Innovative Genomics Institute, based at the University of California, Berkeley, about the future of CRISPR-based cures.Transcripts for this segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. To stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

You've probably heard of CRISPR, the revolutionary technology that allows us to edit the DNA in living organisms. Biochemist and 2023 Audacious Project grantee Jennifer Doudna earned the Nobel Prize for her groundbreaking work in this field — and now she's here to tell us about its next world-changing advancement. She explains how her team at the Innovative Genomics Institute is pioneering a brand new field of science — precision microbiome editing — that uses CRISPR in an effort to solve seemingly insurmountable problems like asthma, Alzheimer's and climate change. This ambitious idea is part of the Audacious Project, TED's initiative to inspire and fund global change.

The technology known as CRISPR is considered one of modern biology’s biggest breakthroughs. It allows scientists to edit genes, similar to how you cut and paste text in a word processor. More than a decade after pioneering CRISPR, Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley, is applying it to big problems, like chronic disease and climate change.Marketplace's Lily Jamali recently met up with Doudna at Berkeley’s Innovative Genomics Institute. It's a cluster of lab stations, researchers and very loud refrigerators where CRISPR is used to edit microbiomes.

The technology known as CRISPR is considered one of modern biology’s biggest breakthroughs. It allows scientists to edit genes, similar to how you cut and paste text in a word processor. More than a decade after pioneering CRISPR, Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley, is applying it to big problems, like chronic disease and climate change.Marketplace's Lily Jamali recently met up with Doudna at Berkeley’s Innovative Genomics Institute. It's a cluster of lab stations, researchers and very loud refrigerators where CRISPR is used to edit microbiomes.

Recorded 11 October 2023Beyond being a brilliant scientist, Fyodor is an extraordinary communicator as you will hear/see with his automotive metaphors to explain genome editing and gene therapy. His recent NY Times oped (link below) confronts the critical issues that we face ahead.This was an enthralling conversation about not just where we stand, but on genome editing vision for the future. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.Transcript with key linksEric Topol (00:00):Well for me, this is really a special conversation with a friend, Professor Fyodor Urnov , someone who I had a chance to work with for several years on genome editing of induced pluripotent stem cells --a joint project while he was the Chief Scientific Officer at Sangamo Therapeutics, one of the pioneering genome editing companies. Before I get into it, I just want to mention a couple of things. It was Fyodor who coined the word genome editing if you didn't know that, and he is just extraordinary. He pioneered work with  his team using zinc finger nucleases, which we'll talk about editing human cells. And his background is he grew up in Moscow. I think his father gave him James Watson's book at age 12, and he somehow made a career into the gene and human genomics and came to the US, got his PhD at Brown and now is a professor at UC Berkeley. So welcome Fyodor.Fyodor Urnov (01:07):What an absolute treat to be here and speak with you.Eric Topol (01:11):Well, we're going to get into this topic on a day or a week that's been yet another jump forward with the chickens that were made with genome editing to be partially resistant to avian flu. That was yesterday. Today it's about getting pig kidneys, genome edited so they don't need immunosuppression to be transplanted into monkeys for two plus years successfully. And this is just never ending, extraordinary stuff. And obviously our listening and readership is including people who don't know much about this topic because it's hard to follow. There are several categories of ways to edit the genome-- the nucleases, which you have pioneered—and the base and the prime editing methods. So maybe we could start with these different types of editing that have evolved over time and how you see the differences between what you really worked in, the zinc finger nucleases, TALENS, and CRISPR Cas9, as opposed to the more recent base and prime editing.Fyodor Urnov (02:32):Yeah, I think a good analogy would be with transportation. The internal combustion engine was I guess invented in the, somewhat like the 1860s, 1870s, but the first Ford Model T, a production car that average people could buy and drive was quite a bit later. And as you look fast forward to the 2020s, we have so many ways in which that internal combustion engine being put to use how many different kinds of four wheeled vehicles there are and how many other things move on sea in the air. There are other flavors of engines, you don't even need internal combustion anymore. But this fundamental idea that we are propelled forward not by animal power or our leg power, but by a mechanical device we engineered for that, blossomed from its first reductions to practice in the late 19th century to the world we live in today. The dream of changing human DNA on demand is actually quite an old one.(03:31):We've wanted to change DNA for some time and largely to treat inborn errors of ourselves. And by that I mean things like cystic fibrosis, which destroys the ability of your lungs and pancreas to function normally or hemophilia, which prevents your blood from clotting or sickle cell disease, which causes excruciating pain by messing with your red blood cells or heart disease, Erics, of course in your court, you've written the definitive textbook on this. Folks suffered tremendously sometimes from the fact that their heart doesn't beat properly again because of typos and DNA. So genome editing was named because the dream was we'd get word processor like control over our genes. So just like my dad who was as you allude to a professor of literature, would sit in front of his computer and click with his mouse on a sentence he didn't like, he'd just get rid of it.(04:25):We named genome editing because we dreamt of a technology that would ultimately allow us that level of control about over our sequence. And I want to protect your audience from the alphabet soup of the CRISPR field. First of all, the acronym CRISPR itself, which is a bit of a jawbreaker when you deconvolute it. And then of course the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats doesn't really teach you anything, anyone, unless you're a professional in this space. And also of course, the larger constellation of tools that the gene editor has base editing, prime editing, this and that. And I just want to say one key thing. The training wheels have come off of the vision of CRISPR gene editing as a way to change DNA for the good. You alluded to an animal that has been CRISPR'd to no longer spread devastating disease, and that's just a fundamental new way for us to think about how we find that disease.(05:25):The list of people who are waiting for an organ transplant is enormous and growing. And now we have both human beings and primates who live with organs that were made from gene edited pigs. Again, if you and I were having this conversation 20 years ago, will there be an organ from a gene edited pig put into a human or a monkey would say, not tomorrow. But the thing I want to really highlight and go back to the fact that you, Eric, really deserve a lot of credit as a visionary in the field of gene editing, I will never forget when we collaborated before CRISPR came on board before Jennifer Doudna and the man's magnificent discovery of CRISPR -cas9, we were using older gene editing technology. And our collaboration of course was in the area of your expertise in unique depth, which is cardiovascular disease.(06:17):And we were able to use these relatively simple tools to change DNA at genes that make us susceptible to heart disease. And you said to me, I will never forget this, Fyodor. What I want to do is I want to cut heart disease out of my genome. And you know what? That's happened. That is happening clinically. Here we are in 2023 and there's a biotechnology company (VERVE Therapeutics) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and they are literally using CRISPR to cut out heart disease from the DNA of living individuals. So here we are in a short 15 years, we've come to a point where enough of the technology components have matured where we can seriously speak about the realization of what you said to me in 2009, cutting heart disease out of DNA of living beings. Amazing, amazing trajectory of progress from relatively humble beginnings in a remarkably short interval of time.Eric Topol (07:17):Well, it's funny, I didn't even remember that well. You really brought it back. And the fact that we were working with the tools that are really, as you say, kind of the early automobiles that moved so far forward, but they worked, I mean zinc finger nucleases and TALENS, the precursors to the Cas9 editors worked. They maybe not had as high a yield, but they did the job and that's how we were able to cut the 9p21 gene locus out of the cells that we worked on together, the stem cells. Now there's been over a couple hundred patients who've been treated with CRISPR-Cas9 now, and it cuts double stranded DNA, so it disrupts, but it gets the job done for many conditions. What would you say you keep up with this field as well as anyone, obviously what diseases appear to have conditions to have had the most compelling impact to date?Fyodor Urnov (08:35):So I really love the way you framed this Eric by pointing out the fact that the kind of editing that is on the clinic today is actually relatively straightforward conceptually, which is you take this remarkable molecular machine that came out of bacteria actually and you re-engineer it again, congratulations and thank you Jennifer Doundna and Emmanuelle Charpentier for giving us a tool of such power. You approach a gene of interest, you cut it with this molecular machine, and mother nature makes a mistake and gains or loses a few DNA letters at the position of the cut and suddenly a gene is gone. Okay, well, why would you want to get rid of a gene? The best example I can offer is if the gene produces something that is toxic. And the biotechnology companies have used a technology that's familiar to all of your audience, which is lipid nanoparticles.(09:27):And we all know about lipid nanoparticles because they're of course the basis of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for SARS-CoV2. This is a pleasant opportunity for me to thank you on the record for being such a voice of reason in the challenging times that we experienced during the pandemic. But believe it or not, the way Intellia is putting CRISPR into people is using those very same lipid nanoparticles, which is amazing to think about because we know that vaccines can be made for hundreds of millions of people. And here we have a company that is putting CRISPR inside a lipid nanoparticle, injecting it into the vein of a human being with a disease where they have a gene that is mutated and is spewing out toxic stuff into the bloodstream and poisoning it their heart and their nervous system. And it sounds science fictional except it's science real.(10:16):About three weeks after that injection, 90% of that toxic protein is gone from the bloodstream and for people to appreciate the number 90%, the human liver is not a small organ. It's about more than one liter in size. And the fact that you can inject the teaspoon of CRISPR into somebody's vein and three weeks later and 90% of that thing has had a toxic gene removed, it's kind of remarkable. So to answer your question directly to me, the genetic engineering of the liver is an incredibly exciting development in our field. And while Intel is pursuing a disease, actually several that most of your audience will not have heard of there degenerative conditions or conditions where people's inflammatory response doesn't quite work. And let's be fair, they're relatively rare. They maybe affect tens of thousands at most people on planet earth. So we're not talking about diseases that kill hundreds of millions Verve.(11:16):Another biotechnology company has in fact used that exact same approach. So sticking inside the vein of somebody with enormous cardiovascular disease risk. Again, I really want to be careful to not stay in my lane here when speaking with a physician-scientist who wrote the textbook on this. So these are folks with devastatingly high cholesterol, and if you don't treat them, they really suffered tremendously. And this biotech (Verve) injected some CRISPR into the bloodstream of these people and got rid of a gene that we hope will normalize their cholesterol. Well, that's amazing. Sign me up for that one. So that's as far as editing the liver. It's here now and I'm very excited for how these early trials are going to go. Editing the blood has moved also quite fast. Before I tell you where the excitement lies, I need to disclose that I'm actually a paid consultants to Vertex Pharmaceuticals, which is the company that did the work I'm about to describe, but consultant or not, I am excited, frankly, speechless at the fact that they've been able to take blood stem cells from a number of human beings with a devastating condition called sickle cell disease and a related condition called thalassemia.(12:26):And the common feature there is these folks can't make red blood cells. So they need transfusions, they need treatment for pain. The list goes on and on. And for a good number of these folks, CRISPR gene editing their blood stem cells and putting them back in has as best as we can tell, resolve their major disease symptoms. They don't need transfusions, they don't experience pain. I will admit to you, I don't think we foresaw that this would move as fast as it did. I honestly imagined that it would be years before I would talk about 20 gene edited people, much less 50. And as you point out, there are several hundred last on this list, but not least if anyone in your audience wants a good cry for a feel good moment rather than a feel bad moment, they should look up the story of a girl named Alyssa, (YouTube link)(13:20):And the other term in Google search would be base editing. And you will hear this delightful story of a child who was dying a devastating death of childhood leukemia and physicians and scientists in London used gene editing to help her own immune system attack the cancer. And she's now alive and well and beaming from the pages of newspapers. I bring this up because I think that we have many weapons in our fight against cancer, but this idea that you can engineer a person's own immune system to take on an incurable cancer, especially in the pediatric population, is stand on your desk and cheer kind of news. Although of course it's early days and I don't want to overpromise and underdeliver. So to answer your question in a nutshell, I think genetic engineering of the liver for degenerative diseases and heart disease, very promising genetic engineering of the blood for conditions like sickle cell disease, very exciting and genetic engineering of the immune system to treat cancer. Amazing avenues that are realistic that are in the clinic today. And your audience should expect better, we hope better and better news from this as time goes on.Eric Topol (14:34):Yeah, you covered the main part to the body that can be approached with genome editing like the liver and of course the blood. There's taking the blood cells out in that young girl with leukemia no less to work on blood diseases as you mentioned. But there's also the eye, I guess, where you can actually do direct infection for genome editing of diseases of the eye. Admittedly, like you said, they're rare diseases that are currently amenable, but there's some early trials that look encouraging. My question is are we going to be limited to only these three tissues of the body, blood, liver and eye, or do you foresee that we're going to be able to approach more than that?Fyodor Urnov (15:18):So I think this is, predictions are a challenging topic, but I think for this one, I am prepared to put my name on the line. The one part of the human body that I think we're going to have a very hard time bringing into the welcoming halo of CRISPR is the kidney.(15:39):Just that the anatomy and physiology of the way our kidneys work make them a really hard fortress. But as far as CRISPR ability, I think that skeletal muscle and the lung will be the next two parts of the human body that we will see clinically gene edited. And as you point out, sensory systems. So the eye, the ear are already inside the realm of CRISPR. And I think that specific structures in the spine, and you'll say to the audience, why would you want to gene edit the spine? Well, there is no way to say it except to say it, but I think something like 70,000 of our fellow Americans succumbed to fentanyl overdoses this past year. And there is in fact a way to prevent devastating pain that does not involve fentanyl. It involves CRISPR. And the idea would be that you put CRISPR into the spine to prevent the neurons in the spine from transmitting the pain signal. We know what gene to use, we know what gene to go after. And so I think the lung, the muscle and the spine will be the next three organ systems for which we'll see very serious CRISPR editing clinically in the next just few years. You will notice I did not mention the brain.(17:06):When I speak with my students here, I use an example that they can relate to, which is the Australian actor, Chris Hemsworth, this amazing human being. He plays superheroes or demigods or something or other. So all of my students here at Cal Tech know who he is. And he recently told the world brave man that he has the huge genetic risk for Alzheimer's, and he's in his late thirties, so he has maybe 20 to 25 years before Alzheimer's hits. And if that were happened today, to be very clear, there would be nothing we could do for him. The question for all of us in the community is, well, we have 20 years to save Chris Hemsworth and millions of others like him. Are we going to get there? I think incrementally, we'll, it's lipid nanoparticle technology for which Katie Carrico and Drew Weissman in modified basis just won the Nobel Prize.(18:01):That's relatively recent stuff, right? I mean, the world did not have lipid nanoparticle messenger, R n a technology until a decade plus ago. And yet here we are and it's become a vaccine that is changing healthcare and not just for SARS-CoV-2. So what I'm really looking forward to is the following. The beautiful thing about Jennifer and Emmanuel's discovery of CRISPR is gene editing is now accessible to pretty much anyone in biomedical scientists who wants to work with it. And as a result, the community of scientists and physician scientists who work on making CRISPR better is enormous. Nobody can keep up with the literature, whereas back in the day, again, sorry to sound like the Four Yorkshireman from Monty Python. Oh, back in the day we didn't have teeth. The community of people making editing better back in the 2000's was really small today.(18:58):Name a problem. There are 50 labs working on it. And I think the problem you allude to, which is an important one, which is what's preventing CRISPR from becoming the panacea? Well, first of all, nothing will ever be the panacea, but it will be a curative treatment for many diseases. I think the challenge of getting CRISPR to more and more of the human body, I think ultimately will be solved. Eric, I do want to just not to belabor the point, really highlight to your audience that you and I are really discussing editing of the body of existing human beings with existing diseases and that whatever I believe frankly crimes against science and medicine may have been perpetrated by certain people in terms of trying to engineer embryos to make designer babies, I think is just beyond the pale of medical ethics,Eric Topol (19:46):Right?Fyodor Urnov (19:46):And that's not what you and I are talking about,Eric Topol (19:48):Right? No, no. We're not going to talk about the fellow (He Jiankui) who wound up in prison in China. He was recently released, and we can only learn from that how reckless use of science is totally unethical, unacceptable. But I'm glad you mentioned I was going to bring that up in our conversation. Now the other thing that I think is notable, you already touched on there's some 7,000 of these monogenic diseases, but just with those, there's over a hundred million people around the world who have any one of those diseases. Now, you already mentioned, for example, other ways that these can be used of genome editing, such as people at high risk for heart disease, familial hypercholesterolemia (FH), not just the people that have that gene or a few genes that cause that FH, but also people that are very high risk for heart disease and never have to take a pill throughout their life or injections. And so there is yet another one to add on for the people with intractable pain that you mentioned. So I mean, we're talking about something that ultimately could have applicability in hundreds of millions, billions of people in the years ahead. So this is not something to take lightly. It will take time to have compelling evidence. And that gets me to off target effects.Fyodor Urnov (21:20):Oh yes. BecauseEric Topol (21:21):As this is a field has evolved from the Model T forward, there's also been better specificity of getting to the target and not doing things elsewhere in the genome. Can you comment about where do we stand with these off target effects?Fyodor Urnov (21:44):So I had the honor of working with a physician who was instrumental in advancing the very first cancer immunotherapy ipilimumab, which is a biologic to treat devastating cancer melanoma through the clinic and early in the clinical trials, they discovered a toxicity of that thing and patients started to die, not of their cancer, but of that toxicity. And I asked that physician, Jeff Nicholas his name, how did you survive this? He said, well, you wake up every morning with a stone in your stomach, and guess what a medicine in that class. Here we are. Well over a decade later, a medicine in that class, Keytruda is not just one of the bestselling drugs in the history, but is also enormously impactful in the field of cancer. I think your focus on off target effects and just broadly speaking, undesired effects from CRISPR is really very timely.(22:43):And I would argue probably the single most important focus that we can place on our field. Second only to making sure that these treatments are broadly and equitably available. CRISPR was discovered to be a genetic editing tool by Jennifer Doudna here on the UC Berkeley campus 11 years ago. That's nothing in terms of the history of medicine. It's nothing. It's a baby. And so for that reason, all of us are enormously mindful. Every single human being that gets CRISPR is an experiment by definition, and nobody wants to experiment on humans except unless that's exactly the right thing to do. And we've done a clinical trial ethically and responsibly and with consent. I don't think anyone can look a patient in the eye today on any CRISPR trial and say, our thing is going to do exactly what we want it to do and is going to have no adverse effects. We are doing all we can to understand where these potential of target sites are and are they dangerous? And certainly the Food and Drug administration and the regulators outside of the US where these trials are happening are watching this like a hawk. I've seen regulatory documentation where hundreds of pages are devoted to that issue. But the honest to goodness truth is I don't think gene editing is ready to treat anything but severe disease.(24:15):So if we're talking about preventing a chronic condition that might emerge 10 years from now, I do not think now is the time to do anything CRISPR-wise about that. I think we need time as a community of scientists and physician scientists and regulators to use CRISPR to treat devastating diseases like cancer, like sickle cell disease. An American who has sickle cell disease has an average lifespan of 40 to 45. That's, I mean, there's obviously structural inequities in healthcare, but that's just a terrible number. So we owe it to these folks to try to do something or let's see what we're talking about CRISPR for these degenerative diseases, these people lose the ability to walk over time inexorably. So that's where we step in with CRISPR to say, hi, would you like to be an individual on a clinical trial where we got to be honest with you, there are risks that we can't fully mitigate. Ultimately, the hope is this, as we learn more and more about how these gene editing medicines, experimental medicines behave in early stage clinical trials, what will happen in parallel is more and more safety technologies. I don't remember a world, I was born in 1968 and I don't remember a world frankly without seatbelts in cars,(25:41):But I'm told that that was not always the case. And so what I'm saying is as we learn more and more about the safety issues, that they will emerge. To be very clear, I want to be a realist. I don't want to be Debbie Downer. I want to be Debbie Realist. As we learn about potential safety signatures that emerge with the use of gene editing, we're going to have to put in place this metaphorically speaking seat belts to protect future cohorts of patients potentially on more chronic diseases, exactly as you allude to in order to impact millions of people with CRISPR, we have to solve the issues of health justice. How do we make these more affordable? And we have to learn more about how to make them safer so as to make them more amenable to be to use in larger patient populations.Eric Topol (26:27):Oh, that's so well put. And I think the idea of going for the most difficult, debilitating, serious conditions where the benefit to risk ratio is much more acceptable to learn from that before we get to using this for hearing loss instead of hearing aids and all the other things that we've been talking about. Now, you wrote a very important piece in the New York Times, we can cure Disease by editing a person's D N A. Why aren't we? Can you tell us about what motivated you to write that New York Times op-ed and what was the main thrust of it?Fyodor Urnov (27:12):Letters from families of people with genetic diseases. Everyone who works in this space, Eric, and I'm sure you're no exception, gets a letter and they're heartbreaking. Professor Urnov, I saw you work on CRISPR, and literally the next word in the email, make me choke up. Will you save my dying angel? And I can't even say that without starting to choke up. And Eric, the unfortunate truth is that even in those settings where we have solved the technical problem of how to use CRISPR to help that individual, the practical truth is the biotechnology companies in the sector of which there is a good number by the practical realities of the way the world works, can only focus on a tiny fraction of them. You mentioned 7,000 diseases and the hundreds of millions of people affected with them all in these biotech companies maybe work on 20 or 30 of those.(28:10):What about the rest? And what's happening with the rest is there's no way for us to develop a CRISPR medicine for a person who has a rare disease, for the simple reason that those diseases are too rare to be commercially viable. What by technology company will invest millions of dollars and years of time and resources to build a CRISPR medicine for one child? Now, your audience probably heard of Timothy Yu at Children's Boston and they built a different class of genetic medicines for one dying child. Her name is Mila. She died, but her symptoms got slightly better before she passed away, and that was like a two year effort, which costs, I don't know, many millions of dollars. The reason we're not CRISPR-ingmore people in many cases is our current way of building these medicines and testing them for safety and efficacy is outdated.(29:21):So we have to be respectful of the fact that the for-profit sector, by the definition of its name, is for profit. We cannot blame by technology company for having a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders to return on investments. What does that do to diseases which are not profitable? Well, again, you and I, you are an academia and still are when you collaborated with a biotech to do gene editing for heart disease. And I think that's exactly the model. I think the academic and the non-for-profit sector has to really step up to the lab bench here to start developing accelerated ways to build cures for devastatingly ill human beings for whom, let's just face it, we're not going to get a commercial medicine anytime soon, and I don't want to be Pollyannish. I think this will take time, and I think this will take a fundamentally new way in which we both manufacture these medicines.(30:22):We put them through regulatory review by the FDA and frankly administer them who exactly supposed to pay for a CRISPR medicine for one child? We don't know that. But the key point of my piece is that CRISPR is here now. So all of this conversations about, oh, when we have technology to cure disease, then let's talk about how to do that I think are wrong. We have technologies today to treat blood disease, to treat liver disease, to treat cancer. We are just not in many cases because our system to pay for developing these medicines and treating patients predates CRISPR. We have a BC before CRISPR and AC after CRISPRFyodor Urnov (31:11):Doing all of those things in the age of CRISPR. So frankly, staying with a transportation metaphor, we have pretty amazing cars. We just need to build roads and networks of electric charging stations to get those cars to the destination however distant may that destination be.Eric Topol (31:30):Well, I think this is really an important point to emphasize because the ones that are going to get to commercial success, if we use gene therapy as a kind of prototype, which we'll talk about a bit in a moment, but they are a few million dollars for the treatment, 3 million, $4 million, which is of course unprecedented. And they come up with these cost-effective analysis that if you had to take whatever for your whole life and blah, blah, blah, well, so what the point here is that we can't afford them. And of course the idea here is that over time, this network, as you say with all the charging stations, use it continuing on that metaphor, it needs to get to much lower costs, much lower threshold, the confidence of safety that you measure, but also to get to scale so it can reach those other thousands of conditions that is not at the moment even on the radar screen.(32:29):So I hope that that will occur. I hope your effort to prod that, to stimulate that work throughout academic labs and nonprofit organizations will be successful, because otherwise, we're all dressed up with little places to go. We're kind of in a place where it's exciting. It's like science fiction. We have cures for diseases that we didn't have treatments before. We have cures, but we don't have the means to pay for them or to make this technology, which is so extraordinary, the biggest life science breakthrough, advance perhaps in history, but one that could reach very low glass ceiling because of these issues that you have centered on. And I'm really grateful for you having gotten that out there.Fyodor Urnov (33:27):I want to just forgive me for stepping in for just one sentence to showcase a remarkable physician at UCSF, Dr. Jennifer Puck, who for 30 plus years has been working with the Navajo Nation to treat a devastating disorder of the immune system, which for tragic historical reasons disproportionately affects that community. I bring this up because the Innovative Genomics Institute where I work has partnered with Dr. Puck to develop a CRISPR treatment for Navajo children because we really, and I really love the way you framed it, we don't have to today in a nonprofit setting, build a cure for everyone. We need to build an example. How do you approach a disease for which the unmet need is enormous? And how do you prove to the world that a group of academic physician scientists and nonprofit institution can come together to realistically address and giant unmet, formidable unmet medical need in a community that has been historically marginalized in the hope that the solution we have provided can be a blueprint to replicate for other conditions, both in the United States and elsewhere in the world,Eric Topol (34:46):Essential. Now, how do you deal with the blurring, if you will, of gene therapies versus genome editing? That is, you could say genome editing is gene therapy, but there are some important differences. How do you conceptualize that?Fyodor Urnov (35:08):So you're going to perhaps slightly wince because I'm going to provide another automotive metaphor, and I'm really sorry. I should be more serious. Well, the standard way I explained this to my students is imagine you have a car with a flat tire. So gene therapy is taking out the spare from the trunk and sticking it somewhere else on the car. So now the car has a fifth wheel and hoping it runs. And believe it or not, that actually works. Gene editing is the flat.Eric Topol (35:39):That's good.Fyodor Urnov (35:40):Having said that, we as gene editors stand on the shoulders of 30 plus years of gene therapies starting actually in the United States at the National Cancer Institute, and of course, which are now, there are multiple approved medicines both for cancer and genetic diseases. And I really want to honor and salute not just the pioneers of this field, but the entire community of gene therapies who continue to push things forward. But I will admit, I am biased. Gene editing is a way to fix mutations right where they occur. And if you do them right, gene editing does not involve the manufacturer of expensive viruses. Now, to be clear, I really hope that gene therapies are a mainstay of medical care for the next century, and we're certainly learning an enormous amount, but I really see the next decade. Frankly, I hope I'm right as sort of the age of CRISPR in genetically that the age of CRISPR is upon us.Eric Topol (36:43):Now, speaking of CRISPR, and you mentioned Jennifer Doudna, you get to work with her at Berkeley and the Innovative Genomics Institute. What's it like to work with Jennifer?Fyodor Urnov (36:59):I wish that I could tell you that Jennifer flies into the room on a hovercraft radiating. Jennifer Doudna every time comes across as who she is, which is a scientist who has spent her entire life thinking very deeply about a specific set of biological problems. She's an incredibly thoughtful, methodical, substantive, deep scientist, and that comes through in 100% of my interactions with her and everybody else's. Her other feature is humility. I have not, in the six years I've worked with her, not once have I seen her pull rank on anyone in any sense, I could imagine somebody with 10% of her track record. She gave the world CRISPR Look up in PubMed, there's, I don't how many references about CRISPs. She starred an entire realm of biology and biomedicine. Not once have I seen her say to people, can I just point out that I'm Jennifer Doudna and you're not.(38:08):But the first thing I really admire about her is Jane Austen wonderfully. And satirically writes about one of her characters. He then retired to his estate where he could think with pleasure of his own importance. Jennifer Doudna is the inverse of that. She could retire and think with pleasure about her own impact. She's the inverse. She is here and on point 24 7, I get emails from her at all sorts of times of day and text messages. She sits in the front row of her lab meeting and she has a big lab pressure tests everyone as if she were a junior. Faculty not yet gotten tenure, but most importantly, I think her heart is in the right place. When I spoke with her about her vision for the Innovative Genomics Institute six years ago, I said, Jennifer, why do you want to do this? She said, I want to bring CRISPR to the world.(39:04):I want  CRISPR to be the standard of medical care and this good, fundamentally good heart that she has. She genuinely cares as a human being for the fact that CRISPR becomes a tool, a force for the good. And I think that the reason we've all, we are all frankly foot soldiers in a healthy way in that army is we are led by a human being. I jokingly, but with a modicum of seriousness. Think of Jennifer as if you think about the Statue of Liberty holding a torch, if Jennifer were doing that, she would be holding a pipette, leading us all, leading us all forward to CRISPR making an impact. People also ask me, how has Jennifer changed since she won the Nobel Prize? My answer is, she won the Nobel Prize. She hasn't, and I mean her schedule got worse. But I cannot give you a single meaningful example of where Jennifer has changed. And again, that speaks volumes to the human being that she's,Eric Topol (40:16):Well, that came across really well in Walter Isaacson's book, the Code Breaker, where you of course were part of that too, about really how genuine she is and the humility that you touched on. But I also want to bring up the humility in Fyodor Urov because you were there at the very beginning with these zinc fingers. You were putting them into cells and showing how they achieved genome editing. There was no CRISPR, there was no Cas9. You were onto this at a very early point, and so you describe yourself just now as a foot soldier, anything but that, I see you as a veritable pioneer in this field. And there's another thing about you that I think is very special, and that is your ability to communicate this complex area and get it where everyone can understand it, which is all the more important as it gets rolled out to become a realistic alternative to these conditions that we've been talking about. So for that and so many things, I'm indebted to you. So Fyodor, what have I missed? We can't cover everything. You could write encyclopedias about this and it's changing every week. But have I missed anything that's important in the field of genome editing that you should close on?Fyodor Urnov (41:46):Well, so as far as your gracious words, now that I'm no longer blushing like a ripe tomato, I do want to honor the enormous group of people, my colleagues at Sangamo and in the academic community for building genome editing 1.0 and you among a very select few leaders in biomedicine who saw early the promise of gene editing. Again, I showcase our collaboration as an example of what true vision in biomedicine can do. I think I would imagine that your audience might say, what about CRISPR for enhancement? Well, I personally don't see anything wrong with well-informed adult human beings agreeing to being gene edited to enhance some feature of themselves once we know that it is safe and effective. But we are years, maybe a decade away from that. So if any of those listening receive an email from CRISPRmebeautiful.com, offering a gene editing enhancement service report, that email as vial spam!(43:21):CRISPR is amazing. It's affecting agriculture medicine in so many different ways and fundamental research, it's making an astonishing progress in the clinic. Medically speaking today, it is exactly where it needs to be as an experimental treatment for severe disorders, all of us have a dream where you can be crisp, you can sort of tune your genes, if you will. I don't know if I will live to see that, but for now, all of us have one prize in mind, which is make CRISPR available as a safe and effective medicine for severe existing disease. And we are working hard towards that, and I think we have a legitimate foundation for good hope.Eric Topol (44:13):Yeah, I think that's putting it very solid. It's probably now with the experience to date, not just in those hundreds of patients and in clinical trials, it continues to look extraordinary that it is going to fulfill the great, and as you said, it's not just in medicine. Many other walks of life are benefiting from this. And a lot of people don't realize that when you do a successful xenotransplant and you otherwise would die, but you give them a pig heart and you edit  50, 60 different genes in critical places so that it appears to the body as a human heart transplant, one that won't be rejected. Theoretically, you open up areas like that that are just so exceptional. But to also highlight that we're not talking, we're talking about somatic genome editing already, genes that are sick or need to be adjusted, if you will, not the ones in embryos that change the human race. No, we're not going there. The off target affects the safety. We'll learn more and more about this in the times ahead and the short times ahead with all the more people that are getting the first lines of treatment. So Fyodor, thank you so much. Thank you for your friendship over this extended period of time. You've taught me so much over the years, and I'm so glad we have a chance to regroup here, to kind of assess the field as it stands today and how it's going to keep evolving at a high velocity.Fyodor Urnov (45:58):My goodness, Eric, it's been amazing, amazing honor. And I should also say, and this is the truth, my morning ritual consists of two things, a shot of espresso, and seeing if you've posted anything interesting on Twitter, that is how I wake up my brain to take on the day. So thank you for not just your amazing vision and extraordinary efforts as a scientist and a physician scientist, but also thank you for the remarkable work you do in making critical advances in medicine and framing them in their exact right way for a very large audience. And I'm humbled and honored by your invitation to speak with you today in this setting. Let's just say that the moment this comes out, I'm going to tell my mom. Mom, yes. What? Oh my gosh. I have spoken with Eric Topol. She will be very excited.Eric Topol (46:53):Well, you're much too kind and we'll leave it there and reconvene in the future for a update because it won't be long before there'll be some substantial ones. Peter, thank you so much.Fyodor Urnov (47:05):Truly, truly a pleasure. Thank you.Thanks for listening (or reading, or both) this Ground Truths podcastPlease share if you found it informative! All proceeds from Ground Truths go to Scripps Research. Get full access to Ground Truths at erictopol.substack.com/subscribe

You've probably heard of CRISPR, the revolutionary technology that allows us to edit the DNA in living organisms. Biochemist and 2023 Audacious Project grantee Jennifer Doudna earned the Nobel Prize for her groundbreaking work in this field -- and now she's here to tell us about its next world-changing advancement. She explains how her team at the Innovative Genomics Institute is pioneering a brand new field of science -- precision microbiome editing -- that uses CRISPR in an effort to solve seemingly insurmountable problems like asthma, Alzheimer's and climate change. (This ambitious idea is part of the Audacious Project, TED's initiative to inspire and fund global change.)

You've probably heard of CRISPR, the revolutionary technology that allows us to edit the DNA in living organisms. Biochemist and 2023 Audacious Project grantee Jennifer Doudna earned the Nobel Prize for her groundbreaking work in this field -- and now she's here to tell us about its next world-changing advancement. She explains how her team at the Innovative Genomics Institute is pioneering a brand new field of science -- precision microbiome editing -- that uses CRISPR in an effort to solve seemingly insurmountable problems like asthma, Alzheimer's and climate change. (This ambitious idea is part of the Audacious Project, TED's initiative to inspire and fund global change.)

You've probably heard of CRISPR, the revolutionary technology that allows us to edit the DNA in living organisms. Biochemist and 2023 Audacious Project grantee Jennifer Doudna earned the Nobel Prize for her groundbreaking work in this field -- and now she's here to tell us about its next world-changing advancement. She explains how her team at the Innovative Genomics Institute is pioneering a brand new field of science -- precision microbiome editing -- that uses CRISPR in an effort to solve seemingly insurmountable problems like asthma, Alzheimer's and climate change. (This ambitious idea is part of the Audacious Project, TED's initiative to inspire and fund global change.)

Dan Nomura  is a distinguished professor at UC Berkeley and an Investigator at the Innovative Genomics Institute, specializing in Chemical Biology and Molecular Therapeutics. He serves as the Director of the Novartis-Berkeley Translational Chemical Biology Institute and founded Frontier Medicines and Vicinitas Therapeutics. He's also a16z Bio+Health's newest advisory partner.In this episode, Dan joins general partner Jorge Conde and investment partner Becky Pferdehirt to discuss how he got started working in chemical biology and chemoproteomics and his  experience founding companies, along with leading lab and pharma collaborations.

Dr. Brad Ringeisen, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of the Innovative Genomics Institute ( https://innovativegenomics.org/people/brad-ringeisen/ ), an organization founded by Nobel Prize winner Dr. Jennifer Doudna, on the University of California, Berkeley campus, whose mission is to bridge revolutionary gene editing tool development to affordable and accessible solutions in human health and climate. Dr. Ringeisen is a physical chemist with a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from Wake Forest University, a pioneer in the field of live cell printing, and an experienced administrator of scientific research and product development. Before joining the IGI, Dr. Ringeisen was Director of the Biological Technologies Office at DARPA, where he managed a division working at the cutting edges of biology, physical sciences and engineering. Programs in his office included research in genome editing, epigenetics, neurotechnology, food security and biomanufacturing, as well as diagnostics and therapeutics development. Prior to DARPA, Dr. Ringeisen ran his own research group at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory as the head of the Bioenergy and Biofabrication Section where he oversaw diverse research programs including the development and application of laser-assisted printing approaches to biology, development of organs-on-a-chip, microbial energy harvesting and extracellular electron transfer as well as microbial discovery and microbiome characterization. Dr. Ringeisen now uses his amazing expertise to guide IGI's scientific and development strategy, but his duties also include promoting entrepreneurship, working with biotech investors and companies to ensure commercial translation of technologies, donor outreach and development, scientific project development and team building, communication with campus leadership, personnel management and mentoring, program management, and reporting and engagement with both Governance and Scientific Advisory Boards. Support the show

Jennifer Doudna, PhD, shares her personal journey to co-inventing CRISPR-Cas9 for gene editing and the promise of her discovery, during a one-on-one conversation with ASGCT President Hans-Peter Kiem, MD, PhD. Welcome to the fifth episode of Giants of Gene Therapy! Dr. Doudna has been at UC Berkeley since 2002. She is a professor in the departments of Molecular and Cell Biology and Chemistry, the Li Ka Shing Chancellor's Professor of Biomedical Science. She's also the president and co-founder of the Innovative Genomics Institute. In 2020, Dr. Doudna earned the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for co-inventing CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing technology with Emmanuelle Charpentier, PhD. Outside of her continued work on CRISPR technologies in the lab, Dr. Doudna is a leader in public discussion of the ethical implications of genome editing for human biology and societies. Dr. Doudna has spoken at the ASGCT Annual Meeting and will be a keynote speaker at this year's Annual Meeting in May, talking about “CRISPR Chemistry and Applications in the Clinic.” Music by: Steven O'Brienhttps://www.steven-obrien.net/ "Making Progress" (Used for free under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)Show your support for ASGCT!: https://asgct.org/membership/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode we're joined by Dr. Pamela Ronald, a professor in the Department of Plant Pathology and the Genome Center at the University of California, Davis and a member of the Innovative Genomics Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Ronald recently received the VinFuture Prize Award - for her breakthroughs in high-yield stress-tolerant rice varieties. She is also the author of, “Tomorrow's Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food.” Dr. Ronald joins Shely to talk about her work using genetics to help feed the world and the potential that genetic engineering has for the future of agriculture.

Synopsis: Nabiha Saklayen, PhD, is the Co-Founder and CEO of Cellino Biotech, a company working to democratize access to personalized stem cell-based therapies for patients at scale. Nabiha joins host Rahul Chaturvedi for a discussion about her entrepreneurial journey and her learning process in the early days of building a start-up. She talks about opportunities and challenges in the field of regenerative medicine and the exciting science her team is pursuing at Cellino to use stem cell-derived regenerative medicines to treat diseases such as Parkinson's, diabetes, and heart disease. She also touches on changes and trends in biotech she's observed over the years. Nabiha first appeared on the Biotech2050 podcast for its 100th episode - listen here: https://on.soundcloud.com/HkAxq Biography: Nabiha Saklayen is the Co-Founder and CEO of Cellino. Cellino's proprietary technology makes personalized stem cell-derived therapies scalable for the first time. Nabiha was selected as a Pioneer in MIT Tech Review's 35 Innovators under 35 list for her patented inventions in cellular laser editing. She received her Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) International Fellow. She is also the inaugural Tory Burch Foundation Fellow in Genomics at the Innovative Genomics Institute led by Nobel Laureate Dr. Jennifer Doudna. Nabiha is also a TED speaker and co-creator of I Am A Scientist, an educational program running in 50 states that inspires children to explore science.

In this episode, I am joined by Brad Ringeisen, Executive Director at the Innovative Genomics Institut, founded by Jennifer Doudna, to advance genome engineering to cure disease and ensure food security. As a pioneer in live-cell printing, Brad talks through his passion for applied science and innovation, helping support groundbreaking research during his time at DARPA, deploying billions into novel science and technologies, including mRNA vaccines, synthetic biology, and a whole of disruptive innovations. Brad talks through the mission and vision for the Innovative Genomics Institute and the opportunity to help use genomics technology to help create a healthier, sustainable, and more equitable world

Jake Becraft is co-founder and CEO of Strand Therapeutics, an emerging biotechnology company at the forefront of mRNA therapeutics. With colleagues at MIT's Synthetic Biology Center, he led the development of the world's first synthetic biology programming language for mRNA. Jake has been featured in Fierce Biotech, Bloomberg, and the Boston Business Journal, among others, for his vision and mission at Strand of applying this unique platform for real-world disease applications. Jake was recently named a Termeer Fellow and listed on MIT Technology Review's 35 Innovators Under 35 and Boston Business Journal's 40 Under 40. Outside of science, Jake is an active backcountry snowboarder and trains Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Lex Rovner is the CEO and cofounder of 64x Bio, a spinout of Harvard Medical School and the Wyss Institute at Harvard University. Using novel high throughput genome engineering and screening technologies in a design loop with computational tools, 64x Bio is developing new ways of generating highly optimized cell lines for the manufacturing of viral vectors. These fundamental advances enable pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to bring more lifesaving cell and gene therapies to patients by reducing the cost and complexity of manufacturing, a critical bottleneck in this multibillion dollar market. Lex was a postdoc in George Church's lab and cofounded the company along with George, Pam Silver, Jeff Way, and David Thompson. She received her Ph.D in molecular, cellular and developmental biology at Yale University. Josh Mandel-Brehm is President & Chief Executive Officer of CAMP4 Therapeutics and holds a dual appointment as entrepreneur partner with Polaris Partners. Mr. Mandel-Brehm previously held key business development and operations leadership roles at leading biotech companies. Most recently he served as part of the Business Development group at Biogen, where he led multiple strategic activities and corresponding transactions, which included expanding Biogen's non-malignant hematology franchise and overseeing seminal investments to enter the ophthalmology field. Mr. Mandel-Brehm also played an integral role advancing Biogen's gene therapy strategy, executing a series of external collaborations. Prior to Biogen, Mr. Mandel-Brehm held several roles of increasing responsibility at Genzyme as part of the business development group for the company's rare disease business unit. Mr. Mandel-Brehm earned a BA in Biology from Washington University in St. Louis and holds an MBA from the University of Michigan. Nabiha Saklayen is CEO & co-founder of Cellino. Cellino's proprietary technology makes personalized stem cell-derived therapies scalable for the first time. Nabiha was selected as a Pioneer in MIT Tech Review's 35 Innovators under 35 list for her patented inventions in cellular laser editing. She received her Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) International Fellow. She is also the inaugural Tory Burch Foundation Fellow in Genomics at the Innovative Genomics Institute led by Nobel Laureate Dr. Jennifer Doudna. Nabiha is also a TED speaker and co-creator of I Am A Scientist, an educational program running in 50 states that inspires children to explore science.

CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats and it is a genome editing technology that allows scientists to cut DNA with precision and insert or delete DNA to correct unwanted mutations. In this episode I talk with Melinda Kliegman about this tool that was discovered ten years ago and how it can benefit humanity by healing genetic disease, by enabling a sustainable agriculture to ensure food security, by helping achieve a carbon-neutral economy to sustain the environment, and making it accessible and affordable to all. IGI tries to align genome-engineering innovations with societal values. Public education, sharing resources and guiding the ethical use of genome engineering are meant to serve the public so it is crucial that as many people as possible engage in CRISPR, genome editing, and the ethical implications of genetic engineering dialogues. This informs scientists ongoing work and helps them with accurate decision making. Furthermore we talk about regulations and policies in CRISPR technology and how important they are for responsible use. Who is Melinda Kliegman? Melinda (Belisle) Kliegman has a Ph.D. in Biology from Stanford University. She is the Public Impact Director at Innovative Genomics Institute, a non-profit academic partnership between UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco that supports collaborative research driven by the real possibility of using genome engineering to treat human diseases and end hunger. Formerly she worked at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She also served as a science advisor to the Foreign Agricultural Service. Topics we touch: Welcome Melinda Kliegman to The Rhys Show: (00:00) Transition from biotech to public policy: (01:52) IGI's work in human health, climate & genome engineering: (04:27) CRISPR - Inserting or deleting DNA to correct unwanted mutations: (07:13) Making CRISPR more affordable: (10:01) CRISPR cost per-base-pair compared to genome sequencing & synthesis: (13:15) Education system around CRISPR & its impacts: (15:30) IGI's work in climate: (17:52) CRISPR - Working with plants: (19:17) Advancing genome engineering: (20:54) Biggest opportunity & biggest challenge with CRISPR: (24:23) Optimus future in regards to societal engagement: (27:46) Regulations & law around CRISPR technology: (31:17) What the biosphere will look like in 25 years by changing genes: (38:11) Advice to those who want to lead in a disciplinary career like Melinda: (42:16) Ranking in order of importance - sequencing, genome editing vs synthesis and CRISPR: (44:19) Learn more about CRISPR & IGI: (45:52) Mentioned resources: Jillian Banfield: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jillian_Banfield Connect with Melinda Kliegman: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melinda-kliegman/ Web “Innovative Genomics Institute”, IGI: https://innovativegenomics.org/about-us/ Twitter “Innovative Genomics Institute”: https://twitter.com/igisci

Global climate change, rapid population growth and shifting diets are creating intense pressures on agricultural systems. The recent advent of CRISPR/Cas as an additional tool for gene editing has spurred countless innovations in crops and livestock. From improved yields to enhanced drought tolerance, gene editing has enabled a range of promising improvements in a vast array of organisms. In this AfS Live webinar, three young scientists will discuss their work in gene editing for agriculture, their hopes for the technology and the role they seek to play in shepherding the next generation of agricultural biotechnology. Panelists include Nicholas Karavolias, a Ph.D. candidate at the Innovative Genomics Institute, home of CRISPR/Cas technology, at the University of California, Berkeley. His work seeks to provide an overview of how gene editing has been applied in agriculture for climate adaptation. He uses CRISPR/Cas9 in rice to generate varieties that are more drought-tolerant, and in cassava to improve nutritional attributes. Maci Mueller is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Davis. Her work explores the relative advantages of gene editing and conventional breeding to drive the genetic improvement of cattle. Navneet Kaur is a Post-Doctoral Research Scientist at Rothamsted Research and a 2019 Alliance for Science Global Leadership Fellow. Her expertise is in the area of plant molecular biology and metabolic engineering, specifically focused on provitamin A biofortification of banana. Sarah Evanega, director of the Alliance for Science, will moderate.

"We only learned to change human DNA 10 years ago; we as a species are 200,000 years old. So gene editing to treat disease is not even in its infancy - it's in its first minute of being born. To say that we have no idea whether to use it to make changes to future generations would be the understatement of all time. I mean, this is the equivalent of taking our ancestors who roamed Neolithic Europe and putting them in a Tesla." In this week's episode of The G Word, Chris is joined by Fyodor Urnov, Director of Technology & Translation at the Innovative Genomics Institute and Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. Listed on the 2014 Thomson Reuters list as one of 'The World's Most Influential Scientific Minds', he has authored over 100 scientific publications, invented more than 130 US patents and won the Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching at Brown University.  Fyodor discusses genome editing, his involvement in the US's effort to test for COVID-19 and CRISPR technology. He also talks about his education and academia.

How Imperfect Data Leads Us Astray Datasets are increasingly shaping important decisions, from where companies target their advertising, to how governments allocate resources. But what happens when the data they rely on is wrong or incomplete? Ira talks to technologist Kasia Chmielinski, as they test drive an algorithm that predicts a person's race or ethnicity based on just a few details, like their name and zip code, the Bayseian Improved Surname Geocoding algorithm (BISG). You can check out one of the models they used here. The BISG is frequently used by government agencies and corporations alike to fill in missing race and ethnicity data—except it often guesses wrong, with potentially far-reaching effects.     CRISPR Stops Rare Genetic Disease In New Human Trial When the gene-editing technique CRISPR first came on the scene in 2012, researchers were excited by the potential the technology offered for editing out defects in genetic code, and curing genetic diseases. The researchers behind the technique, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier, won a 2020 Nobel Prize.  In one of the first clinical applications of the technique, last month researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that CRISPR had stopped a genetic disease called amyloidosis, which occurs when an abnormal protein accumulates in your organs. They're not the only group moving toward using CRISPR on humans; recently, the FDA approved a human clinical trial that will use the technique to edit genes responsible for sickle cell disease.  Fyodor Urnov, a professor in the department of molecular and cell biology at the University of California at Berkeley and the director of the Innovative Genomics Institute, joins Ira to discuss the clinical trials, as well as what other therapeutic targets for CRISPR-based gene editing lie on the horizon.     Latinos In The West Are Twice As Likely To Be Affected By Wildfires  A housing crisis, mixed with the location of farmwork and frontline jobs that attract Latino residents, particularly migrant workers, have put the community at greater risk of being impacted by wildfires, California activists and experts say. According to reporting by Politico, which analyzed data from risQ, “The Latino population makes up about 18 percent of the U.S. but represents 37 percent of the people who live in the areas that risQ identified as facing the most extreme wildfire risks.” José Trinidad Castañeda, a climate activist in Orange County who serves as the Beautification and Environmental Commissioner for the city of Buena Park, says that in order to address the wildfire issue, California must address its housing crisis.  “Climate does not discriminate, but our housing crisis has,” said Trinidad Castañeda. Read the full story and listen to a conversation with Abbie Veitch, editor in chief at Currently.      Consider The Nocturnal, Whiskered Oilbird At first glance, the oilbird doesn't seem so strange. It's a chestnut-colored, hawk-like bird that lives in South America. But with a closer look, its strange qualities start to stack up. Oilbirds are nocturnal creatures that roost in caves in huge colonies. Sure, some other birds, like nightjays, do the same. But oilbirds also have a triple threat for navigating the darkness: They're one of the few birds that use echolocation, they have incredible eyesight and sense of smell, and they have whiskers on their faces. Unlike bats, their ecolocating peers, oilbirds exclusively live off a fruit diet, confounding researchers looking into why they evolved so many specialized traits.  They also have an incredible screech—when deployed in large numbers, it's easy to understand why local populations have given them a name that translates to “little devils." “It's wrong in every way, as far as birds go,” says researcher Mike Rutherford, curator of zoology and anatomy at the Hunterian museum at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. Rutherford studied oilbirds in Trinidadian caves to learn more about their population sizes. “A lot of people say every species is unique, but some are more than others, and the oilbird is one of those.” Rutherford joins Ira and SciFri producer Kathleen Davis to make the argument that the oilbird deserves to be labeled a charismatic creature, and join the ranks of the Charismatic Creature Corner.  

"Learning to Loath GMOs": A Critical Response to the New York Times   Richard Gale and Gary Null PhD Progressive Radio Network, July 27, 2021   In its July 19th issue, the New York Times Magazine published a brilliant piece of twisted pseudo-scientific propaganda. The essay, entitled “Learning to Love GMOs,” is truly stunning. Its author, journalist Jennifer Kahn, takes readers who would have little to no understanding of genetic engineering and genetically modified organisms (GMO) through a fictional labyrinth of out-dated and conflated GMO similitudes to an end point where readers might believe GMOs are really cool and there is nothing to be frantically worried about.    Kahn spins the story of Cathie Martin's research to develop a genetically engineered purple tomato high in the anti-oxidant anthocyacin as the work of a solo humanitarian to improve consumers' health by providing nutrient-rich GMO produce. What is missing from Kahn's equation is that the research was conducted at one of the world's oldest and most prestigious independent centers for plant science, the Johns Innes Centre (JIC) in the UK. The Centre, which is registered as a charity, lists over 500 employees and is funded by some of the largest proponents of genetic-modified plants, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. JIC's website includes purple tomatoes as one of its projects that combines “transcription factors, biosynthetic genes and iRNA [interference RNA] with the availability of natural tomato mutants.”  iRNA, or Post-Transcriptional Gene Slicing, is a method to silence certain genes the researchers desire to curtail their expression.     The Times article makes an effort to advance the flawed agro-chemical mantra of “substantial equivalence” without citing the term. The early acceptance of GMOs was largely based upon the unproven hypothesis of “substantial equivalence.” The USDA's adoption of this concept during Bill Clinton's first term in the White House gave GM seed companies a free pass to avoid submitting trial evidence to prove the environmental and health safety of genetically modified crops. Since the ruling claims that GMOs are fundamentally identical genetically to their natural counterparts, no compliance of safety regulations should necessarily apply. Therefore Big Ag firms did not have to worry over strict regulatory hurdles, which otherwise apply to other products such as pharmaceutical drugs, processed foods, pesticides, cosmetics and chemical additives.    However, during the past decade a flurry of research has shown that the “substantial equivalence” hypothesis is patently false. Alexandria University in Egypt, the Permaculture Research Institute and the Norwegian Center for Biosafety each found genetically modified crops to be fundamentally different. In addition, studies have confirmed that nutrient levels in traditional, organically raised grown crops are substantially higher than GM varieties. New technological methods to create concise profiles of a food's molecular composition, notably “omics,” were not available in the early 1990s when Clinton wore the mantle as America's first biotech president. Omic technology destroyed the Big Ag's industry's arguments to support the lie about substantial equivalence. For example, Kings College London published a study in Scientific Reports of Nature revealing unquestionable genetic consequences between GMO Roundup and non-GMO corn. The differences include changes in 117 proteins and 91 metabolites.[1]   Despite “substantial equivalence” having been debunked, the erroneous hypothesis continues to linger in pro-GMO propaganda. However, in Kahn's recent essay, she attempts to shift attention away from the early generation of GMOs, which were engineered solely to sell more toxic pesticides, and emphasize GMO's potential for increasing nutritional health and to advance medicine. In order to add a bit of balance, Kahn quotes James Madison University professor Alan Levinovitz who accurately described one fundamental criticism, among many others, against GMOs. “With genetic engineering there's a feeling that we're mucking about with the essential building blocks of reality,” Levinovitz stated. “We may feel OK about rearranging genes, the way nature does, but we're not comfortable mixing them up between creatures.”     But most disturbing is Kahn's failure to make any mention o the trail of environmental disasters and disease risks due to consuming genetically modified foods. She completely whitewashes the matter; she prefers we may forget that Monsanto's soy and corn, which now represent the majority of these crops grown in the US, was developed solely to allow farmers to spray highly toxic pesticides without injuring the crops. These crops contain notable concentrations of the pesticides that then find their way into numerous consumer food products including baby foods. Nor should we forget that Round-Up grown foods may be destroying people's microbiome.  Last year, researchers at the University of Turku in Finland reported a “conservative estimate that approximately 54% of organisms in our microbiome are “potentially sensitive” to glyphosate. Despite her pro-GMO advocacy, if Kahn's conscience had led her to take a moral high road, she could have at least apologized on Monsanto's behalf for the trail of death and disease the company's glyphosate has left in its wake. The company has yet to atone despite losing three trials with $2.4 billion fines, repeated appeal losses, and being ordered to pay $10.5 billion in settlements. To date Monsanto's glyphosate poisoning has been identified with the suppression of essential gut enzymes and amino acid synthesis, gluten intolerance, disruption of manganese pathways, neurological disease, cancer, amyloidosis and autoimmune disease. Her New York Times article would have better served the improvement of public health as a warning rather than an applause to appease companies such as Bayer/Monsanto and Syngenta. And shame on the New York Times' editors for permitting such biased misinformation to find its way into print.    Kahn is eager to cite findings showing GMO benefits without indicating her sources. She tells us that environmental groups have “quietly walked back their opposition as evidence has mounted that GMOs are both safe to eat and not inherently bad for the environment.” Kahn doesn't mention who these groups might be. She reframes the Philippine story of the destruction of genetically engineered Golden Rice; yet around that time even the pro-industry magazine Forbes published an article questioning Golden Rice's viability and noting that its benefits are only based upon unfounded hypotheses. As for its risks to health, GM Watch in the UK points out the work conducted by David Schubert at the Salk Institute that the rice might potentially generate Vitamin A derivatives that could “damage human fetuses and cause birth defects.”   Kahn, who should be acknowledged as a highly respected science journalist and teaches journalism at the University of California's Berkeley campus, happens to be a contributing author for the Genetic Literacy Project (GLP) at the University of California at Davis, a public relations operation sponsored by the agro-chemical industry.  Monsanto/Bayer, Syngenta and DuPont are among GLP's industry partners.  It is one of the most frequently quoted sources of cherry-picked information by pro-GMO advocates and journalists. In our opinion, it is perhaps one of the most financially compromised and scientifically illiterate organizations, founded and funded to disseminate pro-GMO propaganda in order to prop up public support for GMOs and genetic engineering in general. In effect, some universities now act as private industry's lobbyists. This becomes a greater scandal when the university is a public institution receiving public funding.  GLP and its east coast partner, Cornell University's Alliance for Science, largely funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, serve as the GMO industry's clearing houses for public relations to spin science into advertising, propaganda and character assassination of GM opponents.   The Genetic Literacy Project is a key collaborator with another food industry front organization, the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH). ACSH has nothing to do with actual health science. It has been described by the independent corporate financial watchdog organization Sourcewatch as a thinly veiled corporate front that holds “a generally apologetic stance regarding virtually every other health and environmental hazard produced by modern industry, accepting corporate funding from Coca-Cola, Syngenta, Proctor Gamble, Kellogg, General Mills, Pepsico, and the American Beverage Association, among others.” ACSH also favors toxic pesticides, the use of biphenol A in products, cigarettes and hydrofracking.  It is closely aligned with pseudo-medical front organizations that criticize alternative and natural health modalities, such as Quackwatch and the Science Based Medicine network.    GLP sources a couple thousand corporate-friendly studies favoring GMO safety.  One review of over 1,700 studies, known as the Nicolia Review, for a time was the most cited source making the broadest claims for GMO safety.  However subsequent independent and unbiased reviews of Nicolia's analysis concluded that many of these studies were tangential at best and barely took notice of anything related to crop genetic engineering or GMOs. Many studies are completely irrelevant from a value-added perspective because they have nothing to do with GMO safety. Furthermore, other studies in Nicolia's collection conclude the exact opposite of their intention and give further credibility to GMOs environmental and animal and human health risks. When Nicolia published his review, he intentionally omitted and ignored scientifically sound research that directly investigated GMO safety and found convincing evidence to issue warnings.  For example, one peer-reviewed publication by over 300 independent scientists declared that there is no scientific consensus that GM crops and food are safe.  Not surprisingly, there is no mention of this study in the Nicolia Review.   It is no secret that Monsanto and Big Ag have significant influence over UC-Davis's agricultural department and divisions.  The bogus economic studies trumped up by the Big Ag cartel to defeat California's GMO labeling bill Prop 37 were performed at UC-Davis and then publicized through the GLP. Gary Ruskin, who has been filing Freedom of Information Act requests, has publicly expressed deep concerns that UC Davis is acting as a financial conduit for private corporations and interests to develop and launch PR attacks against academics, professors, activists and other institutions who oppose those same corporate interests.     For GMO opponents, the name Mark Lynas, may send shivers down the spine. As soon as any journalist or researcher mentions Lynas' name approvingly, one can be certain which camp the author represents.  You can be assured you will be reading words on dirty laundry washed in even dirtier water. Therefore when Kahn quotes Lynas as if he were an unbiased authority about GMOs, we know we have boarded the wrong train and will reach a destination of distorted scientific facts and self-righteous corporate praise.    The public watchdog group US Right to Know describes Lynas as “a former journalist turned promotional advocate for genetically engineered foods and pesticides who makes inaccurate claims about those products from his perch at the Gates Foundation-funded Cornell Alliance for Science (CAS).” Lynas has accused those who would inform the public about Round-Up's carcinogenic properties as conducting a “witch hunt” by “anti-Monsanto activists” who “abused science.”  Lynas has denied his role as a shill for Big Ag. However, a decade ago, The Guardian acquired a private memo from the pro-biotechnology organization EuropaBio about its initiative to recruit “ambassadors” to preach the GMO gospel. Mark Lynas was specifically named in the document alongside then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan as a prime candidate to pressure European agencies who were skeptical about GMO claims, promises and health and environmental risks. In short, Lynas has been one of Big Ag's most invaluable foot soldiers for over a dozen years.    Similar to the Genetic Literacy Project, the Cornell Alliance for Science does not conduct any agricultural research; yet its tentacles to attack GMO opponents are far reaching in the media. CAS was launched in 2014 after the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation granted the alliance $5.6 million in start-up monies. The public relations Alliance makes the unfounded claim to represent “balanced” research about genetic engineered products.  One of its missions is to influence the next generation of agricultural scientists to embrace GMO science. For CAS, as for Bill Gates, GMOs are the only food solution for Africa's future. Five years ago, organic New York farmers mobilized to pressure the Trustees of Cornell University to evict CAS from the campus and halt its influence over the school's prestigious College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.   One argument Kahn wants us to buy into is that there were mistakes made during the early roll out of GMOs in the 1990s. But, somehow, mysteriously and without any solid evidence, we are supposed to believe that these same companies now engineering new generations of crops have learned their lessons. All that has really changed has been the genetic technology for altering plant genomes. The same mind-set that only technology and the quest for food dominance remain. After hundreds of thousands of dollars were flushed away during a genetically modified wheat project, a retired professor of plant agriculture at the University of Guelph in Canada remarked:   "We – scientists and the public – are so malleable and gullible (or is it because researchers and research administrators are just desperate for money?), that we swallow and become promoters of the mantra that GM is somehow going to feed the world: by resolving the monumental threat of burnt toast? Or browning in cut apples? Or flower color in carnations? Really? For shame. Let's be honest. The one and only reason these people, corporations, and governments are funding this sorry use of [lab] bench space is because it may yield a proprietary product."   Following Lynas' lead, Kahn wants us to believe that genes exchanged between different plants is common in nature and therefore manipulating genes between species with genetic engineering tools, such as CRISPR, should not worry us. Yes, plants have acquired genes from other organisms in the past – the far distant past – according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. However, it is so exceedingly rare that these should be regarded as anomalies without any correlation whatsoever to the millions of different genes available to bio-engineer new plant organisms. This has been one of Lynas' pet arguments on his bully pulpit since turning traitor on his former Greenpeace activists and joining Monsanto's legions.    It may also be noted that Jennifer Kahn is an active participant in CRISPRcon, a forum dedicated to “the future of CRISPR and gene editing technology applications in agriculture, health, conservation and more.” Among the organization's supporters are Bayer, the Innovative Genomics Institute, Cornell Alliance for Science, Corteva Agriscience and the United Soybean Board.  A mission noted on its website is expressed in one of its mottos, “The public doesn't trust GMOs. Will it trust CRISPR?” This is a public relations pitch that permeates her Times article.    It is important for independent investigators and researchers to identify and publicize the background of cloaked public relations shills posing as unbiased journalists in mainstream news sources. Kahn's New York Times piece is an example of a propaganda effort without credibility; it is an attempt to disingenuously manipulate the narrative so more Americans will love GMOs. In the wake of the agrichemical industry's efforts to bolster favorable images of GMOs and more recently CRISPR editing technologies, the mainstream media willingly rolls out a red carpet. No equal publishing space is awarded to the scientific critics of genetic engineering who uncover the flaws in the industry's public research. Consequently, journalists such as Mark Lynas and Jennifer Kahn are the norm rather than exception. Today the lesson is clear that money, power and influence sustain the lies and deceit of private industry.  Take on any cause critical of GMOs and agro-chemical agriculture, and Big Ag will come after you. Kahn is seemingly just one of many other journalists the GLP and Cornell Alliance can turn towards to advance genetic engineering's mythologies.    Seven years ago, 70 percent of Americans, according to a Consumer Reports National Research Center survey, did not want genetically modified organisms in their food. In 2018, the Pew Research Center reported that only five percent of Americans said GM foods were better for one's health – which about makes up the number of people who are in one way or another invested in the agrichemical industry. Still over half believe they endanger health. Yet too much has been invested into agro-biotechnology to expect GMOS to disappear at any time. As the public increasingly turns away from genetically modified organisms in their produce, we will expect new volleys of industry propaganda like that penned by Jennifer Kahn to dangle new carrots. For Kahn, one of these rotten carrots is to improve nutritional content. Yet, similar to the Golden Rice, this will need to be proven beyond being an infomercial. We can also expect to hear ever wilder and more irrational claims about how GMO-based agriculture might reduce CO2 greenhouse pollution and save humanity. And we expect much of this PR campaign to be backed by the World Economic Forum's full-throttle Great Reset invasion. In other words, out of desperation to reach global food dominance, the agro-chemical industry backed by western governments will be declaring a full food war against the peoples of the world.  It is time for us to unlearn any illusory attachment we might have to Big Agriculture and learn to loath GMOs.

Two preeminent female professors discuss careers in science and leadership in #STEMM reflecting on what the world needs today. Thanks to #COVID there has never been a better time to be talking about the relevance of research, diversity in science, and the interconnectedness of public health microbial health and climate science. The qualities of resilience and integrity come through strongly and both Professors advocate passionately for ways to see more women leading organisations in #STEMM.  Meet Professor Karen Day – the Advanced Life Sciences Award winner in 2015. Professor Karen Day is an infectious disease epidemiologist dedicated to improving global public health.  She is a microbe hunter describing the diversity of malaria parasites globally to improve disease surveillance and control. She has extensive international experience leading field programmes in malaria endemic areas of East, West and Southern Africa, India, Southeast Asia, Papua New Guinea and South America. She is a founder of the scientific discipline of malaria genomic epidemiology.  She has a strong track record of mentoring junior scientists.   Professor Day is also an experienced educator and academic administrator in medicine and science having held senior leadership posts in universities in the UK, US and Australia. Highlights include being recruited to University of Oxford in 1993 where she was soon promoted to Professor for her scholarship and leadership. She is an Emeritus Fellow of Hertford College, having been one of the first women science “dons” at that College.   From 2004-13, Professor Day led the development of interdisciplinary global public health programs as Director of the Institute of Urban and Global Health at New York University. Most recently she has been the Dean of Science at University of Melbourne. Her profile as a manager is a change agent, building new enterprises and restructuring to improve organizational achievement. She now continues her malaria epidemiology research at the University of Melbourne. Meet Professor Jill Banfield, the Advance Life Sciences 2020 Award Winner. A mineralogist-turned-microbiologist, Professor Jill Banfield has made outstanding contributions to our knowledge of the structure of microbial communities in natural environments and the human body.  Her pioneering work created the platform to explore the role of gut bacteria in health and disease in humans.  Her contributions to geosciences are also significant, culminating with her recognition by the American Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society and Australian Academy of Science.  In addition to being a brilliant and distinguished scientist, Jill is a wise and generous mentor.  She has trained many of the up-and-coming stars of her field and has strongly supported their career advancement. Born in Armidale, Jill Banfield was educated at the Australian National University where she completed her bachelor's and master's degree, before gaining a PhD in Earth and Planetary Sciences from Johns Hopkins University.  Jill was a faculty member between 1990 – 2001 at University of Wisconsin - Madison and University of Tokyo. Since 2001, she has been a researcher and professor at the University of California Berkeley with an appointment in the earth and environmental sciences at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.  Jill leads the Microbial Research initiative within the Innovative Genomics Institute, is affiliated with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and has a position at the University of Melbourne, Australia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Innovative Genomics Institute; a partnership between the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, San Francisco led by Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna; is working to harness CRISPR-based genome editing to correct underlying mutations in monogenic diseases. The institute is initially focusing its efforts on sickle cell disease and a rare familial autoimmune disorder. We spoke to Fyodor Urnov, director of technology and translation at the Innovative Genomics Institute, about its efforts to advance genome editing technology, its work on sickle cell disease; and why it is critical for researchers to consider issues like access, affordability, and scalability in developing genetic medicines. This episode is part of our ongoing Platforms of Hope series. Thanks to Pfizer, Inc., Bluebird, and Novartis Gene Therapies for their support of this podcast, part of our Platforms of Hope: Advances in Gene Therapy and Gene Editing series.

“Diagnosis goes hand in hand with vaccination, and of course with therapies as well. What CRISPR is doing is providing for rapid turnaround testing at a lower cost and higher throughput than we've had with other technologies. We'll see that happening in various testing labs, certainly around the U.S. And the nice thing about that is it really does go hand in hand with these vaccines that are coming forward.” When Jennifer Doudna first spoke with Mike on the podcast four months ago, she was looking forward to her revolutionary CRISPR technology being applied to COVID diagnosis. Today, the Innovative Genomics Institute, which she founded, has tested more than 100,000 virus samples, including many in the underserved communities around UC Berkeley, her academic home. Another development since August: Dr. Doudna received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her game-changing co-discovery of CRISPR, which may one day help facilitate the elimination of genetic diseases. “We have the sequence of the entire human genome now,” she reminds Mike. “That's been available for the last two decades. And what hasn't been possible up until now is an easy way to manipulate the code. Allow scientists to make a change to an individual gene or to a set of genes to understand first of all, how they work, but also, really importantly, make changes that correct disease-causing mutations. And that's what CRISPR now enables.”

My guest this week is immunologist Dr. Alex Marson. Alex talks about his recent work on SARS-CoV-2, his efforts to translate CRISPR technology to treat patients, and his long-standing collaboration with the Dr. Jennifer Doudna, recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. We also discuss how he’s managed to accumulate so many titles at such an early stage in his career: Scientific Director for Biomedicine at the Innovative Genomics Institute and Founding Director of the Gladstone Institute for Genomic Immunology.

Not too long ago nobody carried a mobile phone; now almost everybody does. That’s the kind of rate of rapid progress we’re seeing with our ability to directly edit genomes. With the use of CRISPR-Cas9 and other techniques, gene editing is becoming commonplace. How does that work — and perhaps more importantly, how are we going to put it to use? Fyodor Urnov has worked in this area from its beginning, having coined the term “gene editing.” We talk about how this new technology can be used to cure or prevent disease, as well as the pros and cons of designer babies.Support Mindscape on Patreon.Fyodor Urnov received his Ph.D. in Biology from Brown University. He is currently professor of Genetic, Genomics, and Development in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley, as well as Director for Technology and Translation at the Innovative Genomics Institute. His research focuses on using CRISPR gene-editing techniques to develop treatments for sickle cell disease, radiation injury, and other conditions, as well as guiding IGI researchers as they bring these therapies from the lab to the clinic.Web pageGoogle Scholar publicationsInnovative Genomics InstituteTalk on “The Next Generation of Edited Humans”TwitterTodays episode is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus. Mindscape listeners get a free trial if they sign up at http://thegreatcoursesplus.com/mindscape.

Neglected and ignored by the medical establishment throughout most of its history, sickle cell disease remains one of the most common (and commonly misunderstood) genetic conditions in the world. In this episode, we break down the myriad effects that one nucleotide substitution can have on the human body and discuss the basics of what it means when blood cells sickle. Continuing with the theme of the seen and unseen, we then turn to the history of sickle cell disease, a history of long-standing injustice and the unending fight to raise awareness and provide support for those impacted by the condition. And as always, we wrap up with a discussion on the current global status of sickle cell disease and some exciting new treatment options on the horizon.  We are so honored and thrilled to be joined this episode by not one, not two, but three incredible guests! You’ll hear first from Marsha Howe and Sharif Tusuubira, who share with us some of their firsthand experiences living with sickle cell disease. And then in our current status section, Dr. Megan Hochstrasser from the Innovative Genomics Institute walks us through the mind-blowing genome editing approaches being used to treat genetic conditions such as sickle cell disease. You can follow Marsha on her website for her non-profit organization and blog “My Life With Sickle Cell” as well as through her social media channels: Twitter: @MarshaMLWSC,  Instagram: @marsha_h181, Facebook: Marsha Howe. And make sure to check out B Positive Choir too! Twitter: @bpositivechoir and Instagram: @bpositivechoir. Learn more about Sharif Tusuubira’s amazing advocacy efforts on his website and through his social media channels: Twitter: @tkksharif, Instagram: @tkksharif, Facebook: Sharif Kiragga Tusuubira. You can also watch his 2017 talk in Washington, DC as a Mandela Washington Fellow. And to learn more about the futuristic-sounding research being done at the Innovative Genomics Institute (including using CRISPR to develop a faster, cheaper coronavirus test!), you can follow Megan (@thecrispress) and IGI (@igisci) on Twitter, or head to their website.

Recorded July 8, 2020.Dr. O’Connell is joined by Dr. Enrique Lin Shiao, a postdoctoral fellow in the Doudna Lab at UC Berkeley, to discuss how the team is developing novel methods for CRISPR gene editing and the application during the Covid-19 pandemic. Questions from this episode include:You work with the Innovative Genomics Institute at UC Berkeley, which is directed by CRISPR pioneer Dr. Jennifer Doudna. Can you tell us about the Innovative Genomics Institute and the work being done there?You also work on improving CRISPR-mediated genome editing technology, which is considered one of the most significant discoveries in the history of biology. Can you explain this science to our audience?How does CRISPR apply to COVID-19 testing? Your host is Dr. Ted O’Connell, family physician, educator, and author of numerous textbooks and peer-reviewed articles. He holds academic appointments at UCSF, UC Davis, and Drexel University's medical schools and also founded the Kaiser Permanente Napa-Solano Community Medicine and Global Health Fellowship, the first program in the U.S. to formally combine both community medicine and global health. Follow Ted on Instagram (@tedoconnellmd) and Twitter (@tedoconnell)! Dr. Enrique Lin Shiao is a postdoctoral fellow in the Doudna Lab at UC Berkeley developing novel methods for CRISPR gene editing. He is a key member of the Innovative Genomic Institute’s volunteer clinical diagnostics team who has been helping validate its COVID-19 testing lab process over the past few months. He is also the co-founder of the podcast “Caminos en Ciencia” providing up to date scientific information about the coronavirus in Spanish to the Latin American community.Dr. Lin Shiao received his undergraduate degree in engineering physics from the Technische Universitat Munchen in Germany, studied chemical and structural biology at the University of Cambridge in England, received a master’s degree in biophysics in Germany, and his PhD in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania. Links for this episode:Web: https://www.caminosenciencia.orgTwitter: @enrique_lins, @caminoscienciaFacebook: @Caminos en CienciaInstagram: @elinshiaoLinkedIn: @enriquelinshiaoph-d Submit Your Questions for the PodcastSend an email to info@arslonga.media or check out covidpodcast.comWhat Can You Do?You can help spread commonsense about COVID-19 by supporting this podcast. Hit subscribe, leave a positive review, and share it with your friends especially on social media. We can each do our part to ensure that scientifically accurate information about the pandemic spreads faster than rumors or fears. Remember to be vigilant, but remain calm. For the most trusted and real time information on COVID-19 and the coronavirus pandemic, both the CDC and WHO have dedicated web pages to keep the public informed. The information presented in this podcast is intended for educational purposes only and should not be construed as medical advice. Producers: Christopher Breitigan. Executive Producer: Patrick C. Beeman, MD 

Megan Hochstrasser, Science Communications Manager at the Innovative Genomics Institute, talks about the importance of CRISPR science communication and the ongoing efforts at IGI to help people understand this genome engineering tool.

Genetic engineering. CRISPR. GMO’s. How much do any of us really know about these concepts and technologies that are literally changing life as we know it?  Fyodor Urnov has a deep understanding of the technologies and issues involved. He’s currently a visiting researcher at the Innovative Genomics Institute at UC Berkeley.

On this episode, Katie is joined by Dr. Kevin Doxzen who received his PhD from the lab of Jennifer Doudna at UC Berkeley. Under Jennifer’s guidance, Kevin explored the structure and function of RNA and DNA binding proteins using x-ray crystallography. Following his PhD Kevin transitioned into his role as science communications specialist at the Innovative Genomics Institute. In this position, Kevin develops educational material and resources for scientists and the general public with the goal of communicating the latest genome engineering technology. Segment 1: Science Communication [00:00-11:47] In this first segment, Kevin describes the field of science communication. In this segment, the following resources are mentioned: Innovative Genomics Institute Segment 2: Science Communication Pathways [11:48-21:38] In segment two, Kevin shares how he entered into the field of science communication. In this segment, the following resources are mentioned: Jennifer Doudna Connect with Dr. Kevin Doxzen on Twitter: @kevdox Segment 3: Kevin’s Lab Experience [21:39-33:29] In segment three, Kevin shares about a typical day in the lab from his research experiences. To share feedback about this podcast episode, ask questions that could be featured in a future episode, or to share research-related resources, contact the “Research in Action” podcast: Twitter: @RIA_podcast or #RIA_podcast Email: riapodcast@oregonstate.edu Voicemail: 541-737-1111 If you listen to the podcast via iTunes, please consider leaving us a review. The views expressed by guests on the Research in Action podcast do not necessarily represent the views of Oregon State University Ecampus or Oregon State University.

Berkeley biochemist Jennifer Doudna joins oncologist Siddartha Mukherjee to discuss unprecedented advancements in gene editing and the effect new technologies will have on the future of humanity.Dr. Doudna’s research has led to what is being called the biggest scientific discovery of our era: the development of the genetic editing tool, CRISPR-Cas9. This revolutionary technology has quickly transformed the landscape of genome engineering, creating limitless possibilities for impact within biomedicine, agriculture, climate and energy, and more, including treating — and possibly curing — genetic diseases.Dr. Mukherjee is a celebrated physician and researcher. His book, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 2011, was named one of the 100 most influential books written in English since 1923 by TIME magazine, and was listed as one of the 100 notable books of 2010 by the New York Times magazine.This conversation, which took place on Jan. 18, 2018, was sponsored by the Innovative Genomics Institute.Listen and read the transcript on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Kevin Doxzen is a science communications specialist at the Innovative Genomics Institute in Berkeley, CA, associated with Dr. Jennifer Doudna. The Institute specializes in gene editing using CRISPR/Cas. The CRISPR/Cas system evolved as a bacterial defense against virus attack, but it has been exploited primarily to manipulate the genomes of eukaryotes. CRISPR/Cas has already revolutionized gene editing, and has led to the creation of a large number of modified animals, which has led to ethical questions about human genome manipulation. Dr. Doxzen talks about how CRISPR/Cas evolved, the various applications that is has been used for, some of the controversies associated with its use, and its further potential to improve human health. The microCase for listeners to solve is about Nigel Tufnel, an aging rocker with a wild lifestyle who comes down with a life-threatening disease after going fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. Participants: Karl Klose, Ph.D. (UTSA) Kevin Doxzen, Ph.D. (Innovative Genomics Institute/U.C. Berkeley) Janakiram Seshu, Ph.D. (UTSA) Jesus Romo (UTSA)

On this episode, Katie is joined by Dr. Bastian Minkenberg, a postdoctoral scholar in the Innovative Genomics Institute’s agricultural genomics branch. He started working on genome-editing in the food staple rice during his time as a Beachell-Borlaug International Scholar at Penn State. He now continues his efforts to improve disease resistance and yield of crops at UC Berkeley. Bastian is originally from Germany and obtained his bachelor and master degrees at RWTH Aachen University. His goal during his time at the Innovative Genomics Institute is to develop tools for precise genome-editing and accelerated plant breeding using advanced plant tissue culture and CRISPR methods. Another interest is to develop bioinformatic tools to avoid off-target editing in plants and to increase on-target activity. As ultimate goal, Bastian tries to develop an efficient gene repair system to easily change genetic information in crops to make them healthier and sturdier.   Would you like to incorporate this episode of "Research in Action" into your course? Download the Episode 117 Instructor Guide (.pdf) or visit our Podcast Instructor Guides page to find additional information. Segment 1: Genome Editing [00:00-12:19] In this first segment, Bastian describes his work with genome editing. Segment 2: Practical Applications of Science [12:20-22:02] In segment two, Bastian shares some of the more practical applications of his work. Segment 3: Mentoring [22:03-32:07] In segment three, Bastian discusses the importance of mentoring for researchers. To share feedback about this podcast episode, ask questions that could be featured in a future episode, or to share research-related resources, contact the “Research in Action” podcast: Twitter: @RIA_podcast or #RIA_podcast Email: riapodcast@oregonstate.edu Voicemail: 541-737-1111 If you listen to the podcast via iTunes, please consider leaving us a review. The views expressed by guests on the Research in Action podcast do not necessarily represent the views of Oregon State University Ecampus or Oregon State University.

On this episode, Katie is joined by Dr. Kevin Doxzen who received his PhD from the lab of Jennifer Doudna at UC Berkeley. Under Jennifer's guidance, Kevin explored the structure and function of RNA and DNA binding proteins using x-ray crystallography. Following his PhD Kevin transitioned into his role as science communications specialist at the Innovative Genomics Institute. In this position, Kevin develops educational material and resources for scientists and the general public with the goal of communicating the latest genome engineering technology.   Segment 1: Science Communication [00:00-11:47] In this first segment, Kevin describes the field of science communication. Segment 2: Science Communication Pathways [11:48-21:38] In segment two, Kevin shares how he entered into the field of science communication. Segment 3: Kevin's Lab Experience [21:39-33:29] In segment three, Kevin shares about a typical day in the lab from his research experiences. To share feedback about this podcast episode, ask questions that could be featured in a future episode, or to share research-related resources, contact the “Research in Action” podcast: Twitter: @RIA_podcast or #RIA_podcast Email: riapodcast@oregonstate.edu Voicemail: 541-737-1111 If you listen to the podcast via iTunes, please consider leaving us a review. The views expressed by guests on the Research in Action podcast do not necessarily represent the views of Oregon State University Ecampus or Oregon State University.

How curious are you about your genetic makeup? There are hundreds of companies that provide direct-to-consumer tests that promise  your genealogy, deep ancestry and biogeographical ancestry. Other tests offer genetic information about your health and traits, with some promising your whole genome sequencing. But when you get the results, do you really know what you have? And do you know, without a doubt, who ultimately has access to your genetic information? This week, our team meets up in the studios of KQED in San Francisco to see if we can sort out the answers to the question - genetic testing - promise or peril? Join Life of the Law's team Osagie Obasogie, Tony Gannon, Nancy Mullane and guest, Lea Witkowsky who joined the Innovative Genomics Institute as a science policy analyst to look at the regulatory landscape as it relates to new genetic engineering technologies and the role of public perception in biotechnology development and adoption. Production Credits: This episode of Life of the Law was edited and produced by Nancy Mullane, Tony Gannon and Andrea Hendrickson. Our in-studio engineer was Katie McMurran. Our Social Media Editor is Rachael Cain. Thanks to our In-Studio team Lea Witkowsky, Policy Analyst with the Innovative Genomics Institute; Osagie Obasogie, Professor at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health; and Life of the Law's Associate Producer, Andrea Hendrickson. We’re a non-profit project of the Tides Center and we’re part of the Panoply Network of Podcasts from Slate. You can also find Life of the Law on PRX, Public Radio Exchange. Special thanks to The Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, and Marcy Darnovsky and Osagie Obasogie at The Center for Genetics and Society. © Copyright 2018 Life of the Law. All rights reserved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As a four-year old in Juneau, Alaska, Nerdette host Greta Johnsen was diagnosed with an eye condition known as "Best disease." That name is a misnomer for several reasons — the big one being that "Best disease" causes premature macular degeneration — but curiously it happens to be among the best diseases for experimenting with CRISPR, a genetic engineering tool that can be used to edit DNA. This very special episode of Nerdette follows Greta, her father, and Dr. Bruce Conklin, the scientist who's currently trying to develop the perfect CRISPR system to inject into some Johnsen family eyeballs. Plus, you can't have a conversation about experimental gene editing without discussing the ethical implications of making irreversible changes to human evolution. “We’d be permanently altering the course of evolution if we decide that we think it’s OK to edit human embryos," says Megan Hochstrasser, a science communications manager and CRISPR expert. "Is that something we want to be able to do as a society?”That's a great question. Let's talk about it. Special thanks this week to the Innovative Genomics Institute as well as the Institute for Human Genetics at the University of California, San Francisco.