How are you improving genetic scissors, Ms Madariaga Marcos?

The Spanish physicist Julene Madariaga Marcos is searching for ways of making genetic scissors even more reliable. “One of the problems with genetic scissors is off-targeting,” she explains. “They also cut through DNA that is similar, but not identical, to the actual target sequence.” This can have serious side-effects – through to genes losing their functionality. To ensure that tomorrow’s genetic scissors work more precisely, Madariaga Marcos has developed a nano sensor to trace what happens when off-targeting occurs at a molecular level.

“The sensor helps us to investigate the mechanisms CRISPR/Cas systems use to dock onto DNA sequences from a biophysical perspective.” To this end the researchers purposely expose CRISPR/Cas to DNA sequences to which the genetic scissors are not supposed to respond. “Ideally, our research will help us to understand how we can seriously reduce the side-effects of the technology or even remove them altogether. This would take us a step closer to being able to treat genetic diseases.”