Stefano Menegatti
North Carolina State University, NC·Engineering
CRISPR gene editing could treat genetic diseases and improve crops. Each use, though, needs large amounts of very pure, active CRISPR machinery.
- Fields
Engineering
Biochemistry
Biomedical Engineering
- Topics
Cas9
Cas12a
Cas13b
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2028
What they work on
- Determine how SMART peptide ligands capture the Cas9 protein and how adding guide RNA triggers its release, combining experiments and computational modeling of binding and kinetics.
- Extend the SMART ligand discovery platform beyond Cas9 to other high-value CRISPR nucleases, Cas12a and Cas13b.
- Integrate the ligands into an optimized chromatography process that isolates only active CRISPR ribonucleoproteins from cell lysates and removes Cas proteins bound to host RNA.
More about the research
That machinery is a ribonucleoprotein (RNP): a Cas cutting enzyme bound to a guide RNA that tells it where to cut. Manufacturing is hard because cell extracts contain Cas proteins that have wrongly bound the host cell's own RNA. These inactive look-alikes are difficult to separate from the active complexes.
Why it matters
Gene therapies and crop-editing efforts depend on large supplies of pure, active CRISPR complexes. A faster, more reliable and cheaper purification method could lower the cost of making CRISPR tools and remove inactive contaminants. That could benefit companies and clinics developing CRISPR-based treatments and agricultural products.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Xuedong Liu
University of Colorado Boulder, CO·Biochemistry
Develop stable all-in-one producer cell lines that generate gectosomes, engineered membrane vesicles that fuse with target cells, while expressing optimized guide RNAs for gene editing cargo.
Rick Russell
University of Texas at Austin, TX·Biochemistry
Measure how mismatches between guide RNA and target weaken CRISPR-Cas binding, testing whether the penalty is predictable from the properties of the R-loop or RNA helix.
Jack Dunkle
University of Alabama, AL·Biochemistry
Test whether mismatches at specific sensitive positions in the guide RNA-target RNA duplex shut down interference by the Cas10-Csm complex, defining the accuracy rules for RNA-targeting Type III CRISPR-Cas systems.
The school
North Carolina State University: 40 labs on PI Pages, $717M a year on research, 603 research doctorates a year.
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