Jennifer Doudna

There's a very interesting possibility that because of the type of technology that we're talking about with CRISPR, which fundamentally, and you and I have talked about this previously on your other podcast, but

You know, we've talked about the fact that it's a programmable technology, and that means that we can change one aspect of it, one piece of it, which is a piece of a molecule called RNA that's able to direct CRISPR to the right sequence where we want to do editing and not change anything else about it.

Right.

The protein, the CRISPR protein stays the same.

The delivery vehicle stays the same.

Everything else stays the same.

And so we're working right now with FDA to get a platform designation for CRISPR that might allow streamlining of the testing process in some cases.

So, you know, it'll obviously come down to the details of the disease, but we're hopeful that in the end it will be possible.

And, you know, Priscilla and I have talked about this too, that as, you know, AI continues to advance and we get more and more information about rare diseases, we'll be able to predict accurately the effects of editing.

And so in some cases in the future, it may be possible to streamline the testing process even further safely.

Indeed, yes.

And we were, again, fortunate with timing because you mentioned briefly that the IGI had set up a program with the Danaher Corporation back in January of last year.

We call it our Beacon Project, and it's focused on rare disease.

And it's a really interesting, kind of a unique partnership because Danaher is a manufacturing company.

So they have companies that make molecules.

They make proteins.

They make RNA molecules.

They make delivery molecules.

And so they were excited to be involved with us because they want to be a provider of these types of therapies in the future.

And they can see the future of CRISPR is very exciting.