October 1, 2019
(SACRAMENTO) — UC Davis researchers have been awarded $1.5 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the first part of a project to develop a novel approach to deliver genome editing machinery to genes responsible for a rare form of familial cancer.
Kit S. Lam, distinguished professor and chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine in the School of Medicine, and R. Holland Cheng, professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology in the College of Biological Sciences, aim to demonstrate that CRISPR, a technology that allows alteration of DNA sequences to modify gene function, can be successfully packaged and delivered to target cells in a living animal.
The award is the second major CRISPR grant at UC Davis as part of the NIH Somatic Cell Genome Editing Consortium (SCGE). In May, UC Davis announced the launch of an NIH-funded research center dedicated to helping the nation develop safe and effective genome editing. The $9 million grant to establish the UC Davis Nonhuman Primate Testing Center for Evaluation of Somatic Cell Genome Editing Tools will serve the Consortium by supporting studies that advance the future treatment of human diseases with gene editing.
