Second Meeting of the ASEF BioX Reading Group

On Wednesday, April 5, the ASEF BioX Reading Group held its second meeting. Tajda Klobučar, 2020 ASEF Junior Fellow, presented the paper “Precise transcript targeting by CRISPR-Csm complexes” from the well-known laboratory of Jennifer Doudna. 

The paper presents a new implementation of the CRISPR system. Instead of the well-known CRISPR/Cas system, it discusses a new method, CRISPR-Csm, which promises to precisely silence both cytoplasmic and nuclear RNA, which has so far had only limited success. It also allows for a significantly reduced amount of non-targeting effects, which would make the method useful in eukaryotic and potentially also human cells. A secondary observation in the paper is also the very specific and strong RNA binding, which makes the system applicable for visualisation in living cells. 

After a very good and illustrative presentation, Fellows had an interesting and lively debate.