New generation of CRISPR shows safer path to treating genetic diseases A new generation of CRISPR technology developed at UNSW Sydney offers a safer path to treating genetic diseases like Sickle Cell, while also proving beyond doubt that chemical tags on DNA - often thought to be little more than genetic cobwebs - actively silence genes. For decades, scientists have debated whether methyl groups - small chemical clusters that accumulate on DNA - are simply detritus that accumulates in the genome where genes are turned off, or the actual cause of gene repression. But now researchers at UNSW, working with colleagues in the US at the St Jude Children's Research Hospital (Memphis), have shown in a paper published recently in Nature Communications, that removing these tags can switch genes back on, confirming that methylation is not just correlated with silencing, but directly responsible for it. A brief history of CRISPR CRISPR – otherwise known as Clustered Regularly Interspaced Shor...