What Markets will Prime Gene Editing Revolutionise?

CM Industrial By CM LifeScience

Advancements in gene editing are set to shake-up both my market and our Business Consultant, Adam Hargreaves' - who specialises in IVD.

CRISPR Cas9 and gene editing is a truly fascinating space with new discoveries happening all the time to advance the world of medicine. 

Now a more precise and powerful technique, known as prime gene editing, has entered the frame.

Reported to correct 89% of pathogenic human gene variants, prime gene editing has the potential to target over 75,000 different mutations in treatment. 

The key differences with prime gene editing, are that only a single-strand of DNA is broken – meaning quicker repair, a more specific RNA conversion enzyme, reverse transcriptase and a prime editing guide RNA (PegRNA). This combined mechanism allows pinpoint editing of faulty genes at multiple base-pair levels. 

The pinpoint precision of prime gene editing reduces unwanted off target editing in genes, which are commonly seen with the trending CRISRP Cas9 system.

The emergence of more precise methods like prime gene editing is huge – and a massive step for next-gen gene therapies. 

This could help change the lives of patients around the world who are suffering from diseases like Sickle Cell Anaemia and Tay Sach’s disease.

It will also have a big impact on diagnostics and, more specifically, CRISPR-based diagnostic applications.

Not yet commercialised, CRISPR-based diagnostics are currently being developed to provide more precise and personalised tests.

These tests will be revolutionary – using CRISPR in a similar way to a search engine to identify diseases. 

The potential surrounding prime gene editing is very exciting, with it progressing into more and more areas throughout the life sciences sector. It’ll be fascinating to see how this develops - hopefully leading to many life changing treatments in the future.

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