Virus-free CRISPR T cell editing

A team led by University of California San Francisco researchers developed a non-viral method to engineer T cell genomes in about one week using CRISPR/Cas9 DNA editing. The method could reduce the time and cost needed to generate T cell therapies, and increase the size of genetic constructs that can be incorporated into the cells' DNA.

Genome editing using viral vectors can take months to complete, and is generally limited to delivery of DNA around 1 kilobase or smaller. Moreover, previous studies have shown viral vectors can cause non-specific gene integration...