CRISPR Characterization and Engineering: Dr. Church and Dr. Liu

Of the many contributions made by Dr. George Church’s laboratory at Harvard University School of Medicine, a foundational one involves fusing two separate CRISPR guide RNA, namely, crRNA and tracrRNA, as a unified product called “single guide RNA” or sgRNA.¹¹ This fusion product is only 20 base pairs in length, a marker reduction from 30+ base pairs from the two separate guide RNAs. Shortened guide RNA simplifies CRISPR gene-editing complexity, further strengthening CRISPR as a potent gene-editing tool in mammalian cells.

Research at Dr. David Liu’s laboratory at the Broad Institute, a jointly run biomedical research enterprise at Harvard and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), elevated CRISPR editing capability to the next level by promoting CRISPR research in three areas:¹²

All five CRISPR expert scientists described in this section are also proactively involved in venture capital-supported biomedical start-ups that aim at translating CRISPR gene-editing technology from the laboratory to the clinics.