Forscher zeigen, dass CRISPR Zellen selektiv zerstören kann, ein Ziel der Krebsbehandlung. In der Fachzeitschrift „Nature“ zeigen Forscher, dass CRISPR-Cas12a2 so programmiert werden kann, dass es auf ungesunde Zellen abzielt und gesunde Zellen schont. Bei Mäusen reduzierte die Therapie das Tumorvolumen nach einer einzigen Behandlung um etwa 50 %.
https://www.usu.edu/today/story/usu-biochemists-show-crispr-can-selectively-destroy-cells-a-cancer-treatment-goal
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Researchers show CRISPR can selectively destroy cells, a cancer-treatment goal
In journal ‚Nature,‘ researchers demonstrate CRISPR-Cas12a2 can be programmed to target unhealthy cells, while sparing healthy cells.
Among the challenges in treating disease, including cancer, is wiping out malignancies, infection, contaminants or other pathologies, without destroying healthy tissue.
“This is a holy grail of medicine and other sciences,” says Utah State University biochemist Ryan Jackson who, with USU doctoral candidate Kadin Crosby and colleagues from other institutions, reports a breakthrough discovery about CRISPR-Cas12a2 in the May 6, 2026, online issue of the journal Nature.
CRISPR-Cas12a2 is among the newly discovered and obscure CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) immune defense systems Jackson and his students study. Unlike the better-known CRISPR system Cas9, which uses a guide RNA (Ribonucleic acid) to bind complementary DNA, Cas12a2 uses a guide RNA to bind complementary RNA.
“In contrast to activated Cas9, which makes a single precise cut in the bound DNA, RNA target-activated Cas12a2 shreds all DNA it encounters, effectively killing the cell,” says Jackson, R. Gaurth Hansen Associate Professor in USU’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and co-corresponding author on the paper.
However, if the guide RNA is not a perfect complement to the RNA target, he says, Cas12a2 does not activate and the cell is spared.
“We demonstrate Cas12a2 can selectively kill cells containing a single-point mutant that causes cancer, while leaving cells without the mutant unaffected, with no observable side effects,” says Crosby, co-first author on the paper. “In mice, our therapy reduced tumor volume by about 50 percent after a single treatment.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10466-y
Targeting unhealthy cells while leaving healthy ones alone has been one of the biggest challenges in cancer treatment.A 50% tumor reduction from a single treatment is honestly a pretty huge result.I was reading through similar biotech papers in Runable recently and the speed of advancement is kind of insane.
Reminded me of the researcher that cured herself her breast cancer by a similar approach: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/12/9/958
We have always been able to kill cancer. Fire, acid, a shotgun, all effective. What has always mattered is collateral healthy cells dying along with it.
This is the future, but what’s the collateral with this if any noticeable difference?
Half in a single treatment is wild.
I hope this technology can be approved quickly!! 🙏
Well yeah, if you set crispr to target a snippet only present in the bad cells and replace it with a cellular nuke… tada! You killed the cell.
We must be able to make invincible mice at this point if we wanted to.