The Effects of a Simultaneous Editing Variant of Disease on Human-Gene-Editing Systems at Hundreds of Locations
S.C is supported by a grant from the National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health. R01HG011711), is a paid consultant and holds stock options at MyHeritage, and collaborates with 23andMe and Juno Genetics.
The issue of precision and at scale using human-gene-editing science and technologies is something that will be done in the not so distant future. The time should be used right. Societies need to be ready, understand the upsides and the dangers, and know what to do when that time comes.
Gene-editing tools are in development that could be used to quickly and easily edit the same part of a person’s genes at tens, or even hundreds of locations. The researchers found that, in some cases, editing a single variant associated with a polygenic disease can have strong effects, and, with the exception of MDD, editing up to ten genes associated with a disease can reduce its lifetime prevalence by an order of magnitude.
Peter Visscher, a statistician and geneticist at the University of Queensland, Australia, and his colleagues modelled the consequences of simultaneously editing specific variants linked to a number of diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, type 2 diabetes, coronary artery disease and major depressive disorder (MDD).