The race to deliver CRISPR

In this webinar for SfN and Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN) members, hear from undergraduate faculty who will share their best practices in undergraduate pedagogy implemented at a variety of institutions: liberal arts colleges, a mid-sized university, and a large research institution.

Nova Biomedical develops and manufactures automated chemistry and cell culture analyzers to rapidly test key nutrients, metabolites, gases, osmolality, and cell density for mammalian cell culture and fermentation media.

Pooled knockout screening with CRISPR-Cas9 has revolutionized drug discovery and has evolved to become the backbone of many drug discovery pipelines. Though powerful in its own right, pooled CRISPR screening is often restricted to measuring a single phenotype such as proliferation or cell survival or simple phenotypic changes, such as measurement of changes in a single gene’s activity through the generation of a reporter cell line.

In healthy tissue, a reservoir of stem cells gives rise to non-stem cells while simultaneously maintaining their own population. This enables potentially endless growth and recovery from damage. Cancer stem cells (CSC) sustain cancer growth in the same way as normal stem cells do in healthy tissues. They give rise to both CSC and non-CSC tumour cells, the latter which lack stemness but make up the bulk of a tumour. DNA damaging agents (radiation and chemotherapy) can stop tumour growth by killing non-CSC tumour cells but CSC are resistant to these treatments. Surviving CSC could cause cancer relapse and progression, resulting in higher rates of patient mortality. There is growing interest in developing treatments which are specifically effective against CSC.