US Patent Awarded to DNA-Targeting Complex

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted U.S. Patent Number 10,113,167, covering unique RNA guides that, when combined with the Cas9 protein, are effective at homing in on and editing genes. This RNA/protein combination act like precision-targeted gene editing scissors.

The CRISPR-Cas9 DNA-targeting complex, discovered by Jennifer Doudna, Emmanuelle Charpentier, and their teams at University of California, Berkeley and the University of Vienna, is one of the fundamental molecular technologies behind the revolutionary CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing tool.

This patent and the previous U.S. Patent Number 10,000,772 cover CRISPR-Cas9 compositions which are useful as gene editing scissors in any setting, including animal and human cells. The new patent also encompasses protein/RNA compositions that can deliver CRISPR-Cas9 into cells in two different ways: as a fully functional ribonucleoprotein (i.e., Cas9 protein complexed with RNA), and with the components encoded by DNA that is subsequently expressed and assembled inside the cell to form a functional CRISPR-Cas9 complex.

For more details, read the Berkeley News.