{"id":121147,"date":"2021-04-01T18:22:17","date_gmt":"2021-04-02T01:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/04\/could-crispr-gene-editing-technology-be-an-answer-to-chronic-pain"},"modified":"2021-04-01T18:22:17","modified_gmt":"2021-04-02T01:22:17","slug":"could-crispr-gene-editing-technology-be-an-answer-to-chronic-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/04\/could-crispr-gene-editing-technology-be-an-answer-to-chronic-pain","title":{"rendered":"Could CRISPR Gene-Editing Technology Be an Answer to Chronic Pain?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/could-crispr-gene-editing-technology-be-an-answer-to-chronic-pain.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Gene editing has shown great promise as a non-heritable way to treat a wide range of conditions, including many <a href=\"https:\/\/directorsblog.nih.gov\/2019\/04\/02\/a-crispr-approach-to-treating-sickle-cell\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">genetic diseases<\/a> and more recently, even <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/directorsblog.nih.gov\/2021\/03\/16\/crispr-based-anti-viral-therapy-could-one-day-foil-the-flu-and-covid-19\/\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/directorsblog.nih.gov\/2021\/03\/16\/crispr-based-anti-viral-therapy-could-one-day-foil-the-flu-and-covid-19\/\" target=\"_blank\">COVID-19<\/a>. But could a version of the CRISPR gene-editing tool also help deliver long-lasting pain relief without the risk of addiction associated with prescription opioid drugs?<\/p>\n<p>In work recently published in the journal <em>Science Translational Medicine<\/em>, researchers demonstrated in mice that a modified version of the CRISPR system can be used to \u201cturn off\u201d a gene in critical neurons to block the transmission of pain signals [1]. While much more study is needed and the approach is still far from being tested in people, the findings suggest that this new CRISPR-based strategy could form the basis for a whole new way to manage chronic pain.<\/p>\n<p>This novel approach to treating chronic pain occurred to Ana Moreno, the study\u2019s first author, when she was a Ph.D. student in the NIH-supported lab of Prashant Mali, University of California, San Diego. Mali had been studying a wide range of novel gene-and cell-based therapeutics. While reading up on both, Moreno landed on a paper about a mutation in a gene that encodes a pain-enhancing protein in spinal neurons called NaV1.7.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gene editing has shown great promise as a non-heritable way to treat a wide range of conditions, including many genetic diseases and more recently, even COVID-19. But could a version of the CRISPR gene-editing tool also help deliver long-lasting pain relief without the risk of addiction associated with prescription opioid drugs? In work recently published [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":621,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1902,11,412,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bioengineering","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/621"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}