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JAson Sheltzer thought he was looking for answers to a simple question, but which, for cancer patients, could mean the difference between life and death: which genes can not survive in tumor cells? Identification of DNA that seems essential to cancer cell survival tells drug developers which genes or gene products to target – a proven approach that has led to the development of life-saving cancer drugs such as Herceptin .
But the search took an unexpected turn. Working with human cancer cells growing in a box, Sheltzer, a biologist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and his colleagues used the CRISPR genome edition to destroy a DNA that more than 180 previous studies had identified as essential in various forms of cancer. These studies concluded that tumors could not survive without the proteins produced by these genes. Sheltzer's team found that the cancer cells persisted despite the absence of "essential" protein. It was like a car to which the carburetor had been stolen without haste on the highway.
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