Proofreading the editors

The threat of off-target edits has spurred CRISPR companies to build in quality control systems from the earliest stages of drug development. Editas Medicine Inc. thinks its Uni-Directional Targeted Sequencing methodology, dubbed “UDiTaS,” will detect and characterize every type of on- and off-target edit created by its therapeutic candidates.

The method exploits transposon biology to amplify and sequence sites prone to off-target editing by CRISPR drug candidates, regardless of what kinds of sequence changes that editing caused. “We can now quantitate and measure in one tube what all the editing outcomes are at a single cut site, and that wasn’t a really efficient process before we came up with this technology,” said Editas CTO Vic Myer. ...