UC Berkeley group identifies new Cas enzyme

In a Science paper published Thursday, Jennifer Doudna's lab reported a new family of CRISPR-associated Cas enzymes, CRISPR-associated 14 (Cas14), that could improve CRISPR-based diagnostics.

The team described a family of Cas14 variants isolated from archaea, rather than bacteria, that are about half the size of other Cas enzymes used in gene editing applications and can be programmed to target specific sequences of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA)...