Chinese scientists become first to test CRISPR in humans, as ‘Sputnik 2.0’ begins
China has beaten the U.S. in becoming the first to test CRISPR-Cas9 in humans. Reported in the Nature journal, scientists led by Lu You at Sichuan University in Chengdu, injected modified cells using CRISPR into a patient with lung cancer at the West China Hospital.
The team plans to treat 10 people with a series of injections. There are concerns about whether this gene-editing technology could produce severe side effects, so showing safety will be key in these early days.
The team removed immune cells from the recipient’s blood and then disabled a gene in them using CRISPR. Lu’s team cultured the edited cells, increasing their number, and injected them back into the patient, who has metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer. The hope is that, without PD-1, the edited cells will attack and kill the cancer.
