BHU SCIENTIST’S INNOVATION LICENCED BY GLOBAL THERAPEUTIC GIANT
VARANASI: A leading therapeutic company has licensed an innovation by BHU scientist Dr. Akhilesh Kumar, who developed a new and easy method to determine the efficiency of guide-RNA for CRISPR-Cas9 based DNA modification/Genome editing. The recent nonexclusive licensing by American genetic medicine company NeuBase Therapeutics has listed Dr. Akhilesh Kumar’s name as a contributor in the license agreement.
DNA manipulation or genome editing is required in many fields such as in therapeutics, crop improvement and fundamental research. CRISPR-Cas9 is a recently developed genome editing technology which has revolutionized the genome editing scenario, owing to its efficiency, precision, ease of use and low cost. CRISPR-Cas9 has two components, Cas9 endonuclease enzyme and a guide-RNA. Cas9 enzyme acts as a molecular or genetic scissor and cuts the target DNA, while guide-RNA identifies and binds to the target DNA and guides the Cas9 enzyme to cut the DNA at desired location. Once DNA is cut, cell repair mechanism can be utilized by researchers to add, delete or change the desired sequence in the genome.
Although several guide-RNAs can be used to target a particular gene, which guide-RNA will work best cannot be accurately predicted. Dr. Akhilesh Kumar, Assistant Professor, Department of Botany, Institute of Science, BHU, has developed a very useful and easy method to determine the efficiency of guide-RNAs. He developed the technology while working as a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Dr. Fangliang Zhang at the University of Miami, Florida, United States. The method uses an inactive florescent protein which can be reactivated by Cas9 enzyme and guide-RNA mediated DNA editing. The efficiency of various guide-RNAs was examined by reactivation frequency of florescent protein which was monitored by flow cytometry.
Owing to the potential and usefulness of this method in the genome editing, NeuBase Therapeutics has now licensed the method. Dr. Kumar said that CRISPR-Cas9 is one of the most celebrated innovations in modern biology. Because of its robustness and precision, this is the first choice of researchers for genome editing and the technology is already being used for the crop and human health improvement. Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna received the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2020 for inventing this technology which can rewrite the code of life.