Researchers Assess Potential New Gene Editing Tool

Imagine having the ability to edit the mutations out of your own genes. Genetic diseases like Huntington’s, Tay-Sachs and cystic fibrosis would become a thing of the past; this ability would change the face of medicine. The potential applications of gene editing are far-reaching — and new research from Cornell might get us closer to making these applications a reality. A recent study may have uncovered another mechanism of a new gene editing technique. Prof. Ailong Ke, molecular biology and genetics, has been leading research on the structure of Type I Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat (CRISPR) systems, which have the potential to be more specific than current gene editing techniques.