CRISPR-Cas9 Improved 10,000-Fold by Synthetic Nucleotides

Scientists at the University of Alberta in Canada have developed a technology that can dramatically improve the specificity of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing. The approach uses synthetic guide molecules known as bridged nucleic acids (BNAs) in place of the system’s native guide RNAs (gRNAs) to direct the Cas9 enzyme to its target DNA sequence, and so reduce off-target DNA cleavage.“We've discovered a way to greatly improve the accuracy of gene-editing technology by replacing the natural gu