Ithaca College biology professor Te-Wen Lo is more than familiar with the cutting-edge technique that was just used to fix a disease-causing mutation in human embryos for the first time.
As the New York Times reports, a group of scientists recently used the CRISPR-Cas9 method to edit mutated genes and produce healthy embryos. Lo uses CRISPR-Cas9 to study changes to cellular protein receptors, which can lead to diseases like cancer. Though her work is conducted on tiny worms, the results can be extrapolated to the genetic equivalent in humans.
Lo recently received a $337,519 grant from the National Institutes of Health to aid her research. Part of the grant money helps fund undergraduate student researchers working in her lab, giving IC students the opportunity to learn about the state-of-the-art techniques that could one day cure countless diseases.