safeEXO-Cas, exosome-based platform has been developed by Scientists at Columbia University .
- Exosomes are naturally occurring vesicles that have the potential to be manipulated to become promising drug delivery vehicles for on-demand in vitro and in vivo gene editing.
It significantly enhances the delivery of CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing components to specific cells.
- It will also facilitate development of the precision medicine and will improve cancer treatment.
- Precision medicine (aka personalized medicine) involves disease prevention and treatment that takes into account differences in people's genes, environments, and lifestyles.
About CRISPR/Cas9 Technology
- Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats Associated protein 9 (CRISPR-Cas9) is a type of genome editing technology.
- It is utilised to change genetic code or edit Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) at particular locations.
- Working:
- Works as cut and paste mechanism on DNA Strands. Genetic codes that need to be changed are identified.
- Cas9 protein is used as a pair of molecular scissors to cut off a part from strand, allowing modifications to the genome.
- Applications of CRISPR: Edit genes in human embryo; Change genetic codes of crops to improve crop resilience; treating diseases like sickle cell disease etc.