Epigenome Editing Aims to Treat Disease Without Changing DNA — SkimNews
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- Epigenome editing is a new biotech approach that alters when, where, and how genes are expressed, rather than changing the underlying DNA sequence itself.
- The epigenome is a network of chemical tags on DNA that respond to external factors like chronic stress, poor diet, toxins, infections, and aging — unlike the fixed genome.
- Tune Therapeutics is running clinical trials for an epigenome editing tool designed to treat chronic hepatitis B in the liver.
- Fyodor Urnov, director of therapeutic research at UC Berkeley's Innovative Genomics Institute, is a co-founder of Tune Therapeutics and a gene-editing expert quoted in the article.
- The approach mimics reproduction's natural ability to erase molecular scars and hand a clean slate to the next generation, the article notes.
- Secondhand smoke illustrates the mechanism: blood cells in an exposed child may dial up inflammation genes and dial down cellular repair genes, raising long-term risk of asthma, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.
Why it matters: Tune Therapeutics' hepatitis B trial marks the first concrete human test of epigenome editing. Success would validate a treatment avenue for diseases driven by environmental and age-related molecular changes — a category traditional gene editing cannot address because it modifies gene expression rather than the DNA itself.
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