Guided design for CRISPR editing

Separate teams from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and The Francis Crick Institute have developed an algorithm and identified a set of genetic features, respectively, that could help drug developers improve the safety of CRISPR-Cas9-based therapies by predicting results of template-free gene editing.

In the absence of a template for homology-directed DNA repair, DNA breaks generated by CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9) are repaired by either non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) or microhomology-mediated end joining (MMEJ). Both pathways are prone to error, which makes it challenging to predict editing outcomes and raises safety concerns...