Genome Editing Tools

Personalized medicine proposes customization of medication to individuals based on their genome (i.e. sum total of all the genes in their body). With the completion of human genome project the anticipation for personalized medicine and gene therapy rose. This can be analogous to locating a typographical error by a word processor and replacing the error with the correct letters, thereby ensuring correct meaning. Genome editing tools form the basis for personalized medicine, especially for therapies requiring change in genome. Currently there are four contenders to this - Meganucleases, ZNF Nucleases, TALENs and CRISPRs. Although, the technologies are many, there are very few commercial providers of this technology. This is attributed to the fact that select few possess the intellectual property rights of turning these technologies to valid form of therapy; for example, ZFN patent with Sangamo BioSciences and TALENs with Cellectis, Transposagen and Life Technologies.