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Wilmington, DE, Feb. 11, 2020 -Scientists have developed an affordable, downloadable app that scans for potential unintended mistakes when CRISPR is used to repair mutations that cause disease. The app reveals potentially risky DNA alterations that could impede efforts to safely use CRISPR to correct mutations in conditions like sickle cell disease and cystic fibrosis. The development of the new tool, called DECODR (which stands for Deconvolution of Complex DNA Repair), was reported today in
The CRISPR Journal by researchers from ChristianaCare s Gene Editing Institute.
Our research has shown that when CRISPR is used to repair a gene, it also can introduce a variety of subtle changes to DNA near the site of the repair, said Eric Kmiec, Ph.D., director of ChristianaCare s Gene Editing Institute and the principal author of the study. We developed DECODR to accelerate the development of CRISPR gene therapies by providing a way to rapidly detect these changes so we c