Laurence Daheron, Phd, Head of the iPS Core Facility at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, on gene-editing strategies for iPS-derived cell therapies
Transcript:
At this point I’m going for the better craft as you said rather than the gene editing routes. We know already that there is a risk of genetic instability in iPS, by the way they are generated, by the way they are expanded and during differentiation. So, manufacturing a safe cell is already extremely challenging. Now, if you add to this an extra step of gene editing, while the risk of getting additional genetic abnormality is getting higher. So we are exploring this now. A lot of labs are exploring this now, which is good. I don’t think the cells are ready for transplantation yet, we are just figuring out if we can manufacture safe differentiated cells from iPS and ES now and the next step will be gene editing.