2021 Dr. Alan M. Gewirtz Memorial Scholarship Award for Graduate Students Winner Mr. Hassan Fakih
Mr. Hassan Fakih Department of Chemistry, McGill University Biography: Hassan obtained his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the American University of Beirut in 2016. Then, he Joined the Sleiman Lab at the Chemistry department of McGill University to pursue his doctorate degree. His work [...]
New Miniature CRISPR-Cas Systems Engineered to Function in Human Cells
CRISPR-Cas systems provide a revolutionary approach to curing disease through precise genome editing and CRISPR therapies have delivered promising early successes. However, engineering more highly efficient, compact Cas systems could result in a more versatile tool that could greatly improve and expand CRISPR-based therapeutics. [...]
President’s Pick of Presentations from the Annual OTS Meeting
By: Annemieke Aartsma-Rus, Ph.D.The second virtual annual meeting of the Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society (OTS) took place September 26-29 on a computer or laptop near you. Despite the challenges the pandemic poses on research and development in general, the oligonucleotide therapy field has made many advances, [...]
2021 Annual Meeting Highlights
We enjoyed another excellent Annual Meeting this year! A more extensive meeting review from the organizing committee will be forthcoming, so be sure to watch for it. In the meantime, here is a broad overview highlighting a few of the many fascinating and intriguing [...]
2021 OTS Annual Meeting Poster Winner Showcase
Date: October 29th, 2021 Time: 7am-9am Pacific/ 10am-12pm Eastern/ 4pm-6pm Central European Time Description: Are you having post-event letdown now that the annual OTS meeting is over? We are too! Join us for this special 2-hour webinar to see presentations by four poster award [...]
Non-Profits Create Next-Generation Medicines that Treat Ultra-Rare Diseases
Hundreds of millions of people worldwide are living with a rare disease. Most rare diseases do not currently have a cure. So, once diagnosed with a rare disease, most patients and their families are merely given strategies to manage the disease symptoms and try [...]
Interview with Erin M. McConnell, Ph.D. (Chemistry)
My introduction to the field was through functional nucleic acids called aptamers – small pieces of DNA that act as molecular recognition tools. I learned about them as an undergraduate student while completing my B.Sc. in neuroscience and chemistry at Carleton University, from Prof. Maria C. DeRosa, who would become my Ph.D. supervisor.
Oligonucleotides Safely Cross the Blood-Brain Barrier to Knock Down Gene Expression
Neurodegenerative diseases, brain tumors, and infectious diseases and inflammatory conditions that impact the brain wreak havoc on a person’s health and are notoriously difficult to treat. Oligonucleotide drugs could provide solutions to many pathological brain conditions if certain challenges could be overcome. Researchers at Tokyo [...]
Ligand Conjugation – Expanding the Reach of Oligonucleotide Therapeutics
Oligonucleotide therapies possess enormous potential as healing, life-changing, and cancer-curing drugs. However, there are many barriers to utilizing oligonucleotides to treat disease. Discovering or creating effective delivery methods for each target cell or tissue type solves many of these problems and there are multiple [...]
OTS President’s Paper Pick – August 2021
By: Annemieke Aartsma-Rus, Ph.D. The paper information: CRISPR-Cas9 In Vivo Gene Editing for Transthyretin Amyloidosis Julian D Gillmore, Ed Gane, Jorg Taube, Justin Kao, Marianna Fontana, Michael L Maitland, Jessica Seitzer, Daniel O’Connell, Kathryn R Walsh, Kristy Wood, Jonathan Phillips, Yuanxin Xu, Adam Amaral, Adam [...]