Article 3S76M Ars on your lunch break: The ins and outs of genomics with George Church, part 2

Ars on your lunch break: The ins and outs of genomics with George Church, part 2

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Ars Staff
from Ars Technica - All content on (#3S76M)
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Artist's impression of scientists doing science.

Today we're presenting the second installment of my wide-ranging interview with George Church, whose Harvard lab is one of the most celebrated fonts of innovation in the world of life science. Part one ran yesterday-and if you missed it or would like to get the background on this experimental melding of Ars Technica's written pages and a long-form podcast series, click here.

We begin today's installment with a discussion of the strengths and shortcomings of the CRISPR gene-editing technique, which Church co-invented. Though CRISPR is a great improvement on the nine techniques that preceded it, it isn't the be-all, and it will surely be displaced by more powerful approaches in the future. George discusses this and provides a wishlist of improvements that he hopes its successors will bring.

Next we discuss xenotransplantation-an incredibly cool word that denotes the transfer of animal organs into humans. A billion-dollar push to make pig organs safe for human patients failed in the 1990s. George's team recently cracked the underlying problems using CRISPR. As a result, it seems that the organ shortage that has bedeviled humanity since the first transplants were made might soon be over. Yes, really!

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