Recent Articles

In the past few years, mRNA has become a mainstream word with the swift creation of mRNA vaccines to treat SARS-CoV-2. This new technology was already in development, placing it in the perfect position to meet an urgent global need. Yet, there are still challenges to be met to ...

An incredible amount of time, effort, and money have gone into finding increasingly better ways to safely and effectively deliver nucleic acid based therapeutics. Many solutions have been developed that do indeed provide safe and effective delivery, and we have had many occasions to celebrate the approval of life-saving drugs ...

The Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society (OTS) is excited to bring together those in the field of oligonucleotide therapeutics for its 19th Annual Oligo Meeting. Anyone interested in oligonucleotide therapeutics is welcome to join the event, which will be held virtually and in person on Oct. 22-25, 2023, in Barcelona, Spain.OTS is ...

A new therapy that uses the Nobel Prize-winning CRISPR technology may be the latest breakthrough in gene editing therapy. Exagamglogene autotemcel (exa-cel), developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics, addresses two debilitating blood disorders: sickle cell disease (SCD) and transfusion-dependent beta-thalassemia (TDT). If approved, it will mark the world’s first ...

There are many different respiratory viruses, from influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) to coronaviruses, parainfluenza viruses, rhinoviruses, and adenoviruses. Some are highly pathogenic and can trigger respiratory failure and death. These viruses also facilitate secondary bacterial infections, often resulting in pneumonia, meningitis, and other acute inflammatory pathologies (1). These ...

Martin Egli and Muthiah Manoharan recently co-wrote an outstanding review that is a great resource for anyone in our community. The review, titled “Chemistry, structure and function of approved oligonucleotide therapeutics,” is a collection of information about the eighteen nucleic acid therapeutics that have been approved in the last ...

Phosphoramidite chemistry has been used for decades to write synthetic DNA, but challenges arise when longer, more complex oligos are needed. After years of innovation fueled by the goal of meeting this need, Ansa Biotechnologies announced de novo synthesis of a 1005 base long oligonucleotide with industry-leading accuracy. Not only ...

Tofersen, an antisense oligonucleotide treatment for SOD1-ALS, a rare form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), was recently granted accelerated approval by the U.S. FDA. This is quite significant, as approval was granted based on a biomarker rather than clear clinical improvement of the disease. This flexible approach to granting ...

Last June, at a genome editing summit in Lisbon, following a much-anticipated presentation by Tessera Therapeutics about their new gene editing technology, an audience member asked a question that is now the basis of a patent dispute: how was it different from the prime editing technology created by Harvard ...

Our world is changing at an astonishingly rapid pace and, as described a few weeks ago, CRISPR is poised to become a major source of change in many fields, from medicine to animals to crops. With any new technology, but especially one that has the power to transform the ...