Industrializing DNA modification

After several years of incremental progress, Cellectis S.A. says its Meganuclease Recombination System, a process for making in vivo changes to DNA in humans and other organisms, is ready for prime time. The method is now scaleable and can be applied to a wide variety of genes, and the company has identified lead therapeutics for rare genetic disorders and hopes to get them into humans in the next two years.

Last month, the company published a new process that builds on a prototype version of its MRS technology, which the company started selling in late 2005. While the early version could be used to modify relatively few gene targets, Cellectis says it can now use MRS to target and modify any gene in vivo, including animal and human genes. ...