Personalized Medicine Series: Unlocking Diseases of the Brain

On November 16, 2017, MIT Professor and NYSCF – Robertson Investigator, Feng Zhang, PhD kicked of NYSCF’s Personalized Medicine Series with a presentation to the NYSCF community at The NYSCF Research Institute. Dr. Zhang spoke about CRISPR-Cas9, the revolutionary gene editing tool he helped pioneer.

Dr. Zhang explained that CRISPR works a bit like Microsoft Word. In Microsoft Word, you can search for certain words in a document and then modify, delete, or replace them. CRISPR does this for genes, allowing scientists to locate and edit faulty stretches of DNA within our genome. It can be used to study or treat pretty much any disease with a genetic component – cancer, Huntington’s, Alzheimer’s, etc. Dr. Zhang emphasized the importance of this technology for the future of research.

If you are interested in attending future Personalized Medicine talks, please contact events@nyscf.org.