Three of the worlds foremost experts in gene editing have joined the scientific advisory board of Cambridge UK medical technology innovator, Horizon Discovery.

CEO Dr Darrin Disley is hailing the appointments from Europe and Boston as a global triumph as the business supplies more and more research tools to accelerate progress towards personalised medicines.

The world renowned scientists who have joined Horizons SAB are Dr Emmanuelle Charpentier currently working in Germany and Drs Keith Joung and Feng Zhang from Massachusetts.

Dr Charpentier is head of the Department of Regulation in Infection Biology at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Braunschweig and Hannover Medical School. She is known worldwide for her work on bacterial immunity and uncovering key functional components of the bacterial CRISPR-Cas9 system.

Dr Charpentier was principal co-author on a seminal publication suggesting how the CRISPR-Cas9 system could be adapted from use in bacteria for broad application in mammalian genome editing. She is also a co-founder of ERS Genomics and CRISPR Therapeutics and was recently awarded the Alexander von Humboldt professorship and Dr Paul Janssen Award.

Dr Charpentier said: Horizon is fast becoming recognised as a leader in the field of gene editing, applying CRISPR and other technologies to develop innovative research for understanding the genetic basis of disease and the development of personalised medicines.

I am excited to help guide the next stage in the companys development and the application of CRISPR-Cas9 technology to their products and services.

Dr Joung has a long history in the development and application of engineered DNA-binding domains and systems for creating customised nucleases for genome editing. Over the past 10 years, his lab has pioneered methods for targeted genome editing using engineered zinc finger nucleases, transcription activator-like effector nucleases, as well as CRISPR-Cas9.

In a recent publication, Dr Joung and his co-workers described a novel system that combines CRISPR-Cas9 with a nuclease domain to generate dimeric RNA-guided FokI nucleases with greater specificity than first-generation CRISPR reagents.

Dr Joung is the recipient of a NIH Directors Pioneer Award and also a scientific co-founder of Editas Medicine. He currently serves as Associate Chief of Pathology for Research at Massachusetts General Hospital and is an Associate Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School.

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Gene editing world leaders boost Horizon SAB

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