What if a cup of coffee could help treat cancer? Researchers at the Texas A&M Health Institute of Biosciences and Technology believe it’s possible. By combining caffeine with the use of CRISPR—a gene-editing tool known as clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats—scientists are unlocking new treatments for long-term diseases, like cancer and diabetes, using a strategy known as chemogenetics.

The work is published in the journal Chemical Science.

Yubin Zhou, professor and director of the Center for Translational Cancer Research at the Institute of Biosciences and Technology, specializes in utilizing groundbreaking tools and technology to study medicine at the cellular, epigenetic and genetic levels. Throughout his career and over 180 publications, he has sought answers to medical questions by using highly advanced tools like CRISPR and chemogenetic control systems.