Genetic Engineering in the Press by GEG

Diseases such as sickle cell anemia are caused by errors in the order of the DNA letters that encode the instructions for how each human cell functions. Scientists can in some cases correct these errors with gene-editing methods like CRISPR that rearrange these letters. Other conditions are not caused by an error in the code itself, but by problems in the way the cellular machinery reads the DNA, a process called epigenetics. As a result, researchers have been exploring ways to restore normal epigenetic activity. A new technology called ZFDesign overcomes this obstacle by using artificial intelligence (AI) to model and design these interactions. The model is based on data generated by screening nearly 50 billion possible zinc finger-DNA interactions in the researchers' labs. To test the computer AI design code, the researchers used a custom zinc finger to disrupt the coding sequence of a gene in human cells. In addition, they built several zinc fingers that successfully reprogrammed transcription factors to bind near a target gene sequence and increase or decrease its expression, demonstrating that their technology can be used for epigenetic changes. This program could enable the first simple production of customizable zinc fingers to treat certain diseases.