VIPR Gene Editor Found in Viruses May Rival CRISPR — SkimNews
Get the Health newsletter
Daily health & science — research, biotech, public health, the studies worth knowing. Free.
- VIPR, a gene-targeting system found in viruses, appears to be more than four billion years old and may be the evolutionary ancestor of CRISPR, according to two papers published Thursday in Science.
- Jennifer Doudna, the UC Berkeley biochemist who shared the 2020 Nobel Prize for CRISPR, is an author on the VIPR studies and began investigating the natural evolution of gene editors after her breakthrough.
- VIPR can target a wider variety of genetic sequences than CRISPR, the researchers reported, allowing the system to alter more of the genome.
- VIPR's molecules are smaller than CRISPR's, making them potentially easier to deliver into cells for therapeutic and research applications.
- Philip Kranzusch, a Harvard Medical School microbiologist not involved in the research, called VIPR's small size a feature that makes the systems 'transformative tools for genome engineering.'
Why it matters: VIPR's smaller molecules enable easier delivery into cells, and its broader sequence targeting gives it a wider editing range than CRISPR — the tool already behind lifesaving therapies and engineered crops. Jennifer Doudna co-authoring these papers gives the discovery immediate scientific credibility, anchoring the next generation of genome engineering in a 4-billion-year-old viral system rather than a modern lab invention.
Ask SkimNews
