By chemically tweaking the ends of the DNA to be inserted, the new technique is up to five times more efficient than current approaches. The researchers saw improvements at various genetic locations tested in a human kidney cell line, even seeing 65% insertion at one site where the previous high had been 15%.

Led by chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Huimin Zhao, the researchers published their work in the journal Nature Chemical Biology.

Researchers have found CRISPR to be an efficient tool to turn off, or “knock out,” a gene. However, in human cells, it has not been a very efficient way to insert or “knock in” a gene… Continue reading.