Optimizing base editors to reduce RNA edits

Two Beam co-founders, Keith Joung and David Liu, have separately optimized CRISPR-guided base editors to reduce off-target RNA editing, which, along with unwanted DNA edits, is an emerging problem for the gene engineering tools.

Beam Therapeutics launched in 2018 with a platform of base editors, each constituting an enzymatically deactivated Cas9 or Cas13 nuclease tethered to an RNA deaminase that converts bases in DNA (see “Beaming about Base Changes”)...