Advancing science and knowledge
Research to ‘skyrocket’ progress toward personalized genetic medicine
The newly founded Gene Editing Institute at the Center for Translational Cancer Research (CTCR) establishes Christiana Care’s Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute as part of an elite group of companies and organizations capable of making the latest generation genomeengineering tools. CTCR’S Gene Editing Institute is directed by world-renowned molecular biologist and gene editing pioneer Eric Kmiec, Ph.D., who has worked for 25 years to create tools to tailor genes that change or mutate to cause disease, including cancers. His research teams have developed geneediting technologies, including seminal work on oligonucleotide gene repair, and genetic therapies for inherited disorders such as sickle cell anemia, muscular dystrophy and Huntington’s disease. “Bringing together Dr. Kmiec and his team with our clinicians under one roof promises to be the catalyst that will skyrocket progress toward personalized genetic medicine for our patients,” said Nicholas J. Petrelli, M.D., Bank of America endowed medical director of the Graham Cancer Center.
The CTCR’s Gene Editing Institute is dedicated to education, technology development and scientific research into the very core of the human genome. This means designing the tools scientists need to manipulate and alter human genetic material more efficiently than ever before and to better understand and cure many genetic diseases. “Only in the last four or five years have scientists succeeded in putting together a genetic toolbox for us to manipulate and control the genetic material in human cells for therapeutic purposes,” Dr. Kmiec said.
“This could change everything from the way we develop treatments to how we impact patients.” Currently, designer proteins such as ZFNs, TALENs and CRISPRs are capable of honing genetic material into “super shears” used to disrupt and repair rogue genes. These programmable nucleases, genetically engineered in the lab from plants and bacteria, enable researchers to essentially perform microsurgery on genes, acting like molecular scissors to precisely cut into and continued
“ Bringing together Dr. Kmiec and his team with our clinicians under one roof promises to be the catalyst that will skyrocket progress toward personalized genetic medicine for our patients” Nicholas J. Petrelli, M.D., Bank of America endowed medical director of the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute
2015 YEAR IN REVIEW
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