jan 1, 1996 - Srinivasan Chandrasegaran Created Zinc Finger Nucleases

Description:

Chandrasegaran realized that instead of searching for a nuclease that served his needs, he could take pieces of proteins that existed naturally and combine them. He used a module from the bacterial nuclease, Fokl, that was able to introduce breaks but did not have a predetermined sequence. He then used zinc finger proteins to connect specific segments into a chimeric nuclease. Each segment had its own three-letter sequence preference and could be customized to cut many different sequences in DNA (Doudna 31). ZFNs were promising and adopted by many labs, but never widely caught on because they required a lot of knowledge and experience in the use of proteins and was quickly outshined by other methods despite impressively being able to stimulate HR, and showed promise in correcting a mutation causing x-linked SCID (Doudna 33).

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