First U.S. use of CRISPR to directly target cancer will seek go-ahead from regulators

If all goes as planned, the first clinical trial in the United States testing CRISPR against cancer by altering the DNA of tumor cells inside patients could begin recruiting participants next year, the scientist leading the effort told STAT.

Seventeen studies using CRISPR to treat cancer have been on the U.S. registry of clinical trials, but most of those use this genome editing technology to engineer immune cells led by scientists at the University of Pennsylvania, is essentially just a variation on the production of CAR-T cells: CRISPR edits T cells that are isolated from blood that’s been removed from patients, and then the T cells are infused back into the patient. And although researchers in China are rumored to be testing a more direct use of CRISPR against cancer, except for one using CRISPR to knock out viruses that cause cervical cancer, they have not made details of their plans public.