Point of Care Significance 7/10

CRISPR-Cas as a Versatile Platform for Cancer Research, Screening, and Therapeutic Development

This review discusses CRISPR-Cas9 applications in oncology including functional genomic screens to discover and validate therapeutic targets, generation of preclinical cancer models, and emerging uses in cancer detection assays. The authors highlight how CRISPR-based genetic screens can systematically identify drug resistance mechanisms and novel diagnostic biomarkers for clinical translation.

The original study

CRISPR-Cas: a tool for cancer research and therapeutics.

Authors
Yin H, Xue W, Anderson DG
Journal
Nature reviews. Clinical oncology
Type
Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't, Review
PMID
30664678
Read the original study →

Original abstract

In the past decade, the development of a genome-editing technology mediated by CRISPR has made genetic engineering easier than ever, both in vitro and in vivo. CRISPR systems have enabled important advances in cancer research by accelerating the development of study models or as a tool in genetic screening studies, including those aiming to discover and validate therapeutic targets. In this Review, we discuss these applications as well as new potential uses of CRISPR to assist in cancer detection or the development of anticancer therapies.