Chinese scientists say new cell editing tool could help speed up genetic disease treatment
- Base editor platform powered by AI algorithms is powerful enough to automatically edit thousands of cell samples within a week, research team says
- New method increases prediction accuracy by 20 per cent over commonly used BE-Hive prediction tool, team says in recently published paper
The platform, which is powered by artificial intelligence algorithms, is powerful enough to automatically edit thousands of cell samples within a week, according to researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology.
It could help speed up the development and clinical application of genetic therapies and research, the scientists behind the platform said in their paper published in peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications last month.
Single nucleotide variations (SNVs) in the human genome, also known as DNA sequence variations, may cause cell abnormality and genetic disease.
A new “base editor” technology from researchers led by professors Wang Meng, Bi Changhao and Zhang Xueli at the Tianjin Institute could offer a solution.
According to the developers, base editors enable direct, irreversible correction of base mutations, and offer a promising future for curing genetic diseases caused by SNVs.
Large-scale generation of cell disease models for base editing, or mutation studies, is currently heavily dependent on manual operations, which involves introducing SNVs into cells. However, the process is time-consuming, expensive and error-prone.