{"id":235228,"date":"2026-04-15T02:13:40","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T07:13:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/crispr-takes-a-bold-leap-toward-silencing-down-syndromes-extra-chromosome"},"modified":"2026-04-15T02:13:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T07:13:40","slug":"crispr-takes-a-bold-leap-toward-silencing-down-syndromes-extra-chromosome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/crispr-takes-a-bold-leap-toward-silencing-down-syndromes-extra-chromosome","title":{"rendered":"CRISPR takes a bold leap toward silencing Down syndrome\u2019s extra chromosome"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/crispr-takes-a-bold-leap-toward-silencing-down-syndromes-extra-chromosome2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Scientists have taken an important step toward a gene therapy that could one day turn off the extra genetic material that causes Down syndrome (DS). Down syndrome is a genetic condition caused by an extra chromosome 21 (and consequently hundreds of triplicate genes) that leads to developmental and neurological issues. According to the Washington-based National Down Syndrome Society, approximately 1 in every 640 babies in the United States is born with DS. That makes it the most common chromosomal condition.<\/p>\n<p>Traditional gene therapy targets one or two genes, but in this approach, scientists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School found a way to silence much of the extra chromosome\u2019s activity in the cell at once.<\/p>\n<p>Details of their research are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pnas.org\/doi\/10.1073\/pnas.2517953123\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in a paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists have taken an important step toward a gene therapy that could one day turn off the extra genetic material that causes Down syndrome (DS). Down syndrome is a genetic condition caused by an extra chromosome 21 (and consequently hundreds of triplicate genes) that leads to developmental and neurological issues. According to the Washington-based National [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,412],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235228","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\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235228\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}