CRISPR is a groundbreaking technology that has enabled scientists to manipulate the genomes of various organisms with unprecedented precision, efficiency, and flexibility. The rapid adaptation and development of CRISPR technologies are only possible when scientists worldwide come together to share their recent discoveries and forge collaborations for new advancements.
The 2024 International Conference on CRISPR Technologies will be held October 14–16, 2024 at the Bahia Resort Hotel, San Diego, CA. Organized by AIChE’s Society for Biological Engineering (SBE), the conference will focus on the latest advances in genome editing and bring together key stakeholders with aligned interests across academia and industry, creating an environment that fosters discussions and new collaborations. Reserve your spot today.
We recently spoke with two of the conference’s featured speakers: Richard Fox, Chief Scientist at Inscripta; and Lauren Kinner, Director of Field Applications at Kytopen. These speakers discuss what they’ll be sharing at the conference, trends in the CRISPR field, and how CRISPR can advance some of the grand challenges facing engineering and society today.
What specifically will you be talking about at the conference?
Richard: New genome engineering approaches for the efficient development and manufacturing of sustainable, cost-effective biochemical products are sorely needed. Long development timelines, massive investments and high risks of failure are holding the industry back. To address these acute challenges, Inscripta has developed GenoScaler®, a first of its kind, rapid microbial genome engineering platform, is a scalable, cost-effective, high-throughput CRISPR-based genome engineering technology stack that can rapidly design, build, and test 10,000+ precision edits across E. coli and S. cerevisiae genomes to efficiently survey and optimize over enzyme, pathway, and genome sequence space. Along with integrated, state-of-the-art methods for high-throughput phenotyping, smart automation, scale-up, informatics, and artificial intelligence, the platform is broadly applicable and can accelerate the process of synthetic biology product development by orders of magnitude, resulting in unprecedented gains in speed, efficiency, and performance compared to traditional methods for microbial strain development.
Lauren: Kytopen provides instrumentation that combines electrical energy and mechanical forces to deliver payload to cells. I will be giving an overview of how the technology works, how it addresses significant gaps in the industry, and how it can be utilized to perform large-scale DoE to support process development and eventual scale-up activities. By introducing a mechanical component to transfection, we do not need to expose cells to high electrical energy, therefore cell health and yields outperform other technologies. I will be focusing on both small scale process development and larger volume scale up applications.
What are the main challenges in translating CRISPR research from the lab to practical, clinical applications?
Richard: For microbial genome engineering, throughput and scalability remain key challenges preventing wider adoption of the technology. To move to the next generation of strain engineering, we must follow the same technological innovations that unlocked the potential of protein based directed evolution, namely the ability to precisely edit sequences of interest at a scale and efficiency that enables rapid discovery of beneficial diversity, both model driven and arational.
Lauren: Scalability when working from discovery to manufacturing a cell therapy product is currently very challenging. Process development done at small scale does not always translate seamlessly as you move to larger batch sizes. Cell health and yield can also be challenging, particularly with processes that involve extensive cell handling steps. IP (of reagents, materials, instrumentation, etc.) and total cost of ownership is often not considered at earlier stages, but becomes a significant hurdle later as products enter clinical stages. Finally, translating from research to clinical requires additional studies on safety that may not have been considered in earlier stages of development (or that do not translate from in vitro to mouse to human).
What are the primary concerns surrounding the ethical use of CRISPR technology, particularly in human germline editing?
Richard: For microbial genome engineering, we are fortunate in that there are few ethical challenges facing the industry other than the typical aversion to the use of genetically modified organisms. Fortunately, society is continuing to show progress in the form of enlightenment about the benefits of creating sustainable solutions using environmentally friendly precision fermentation for production of important molecules.
Lauren: For cell therapies, unintended genomic changes (i.e., off-target effects such as translocations) may have unforeseen health implications. For editing of germline cells, long-term impacts (both intended and unintended) may not be fully understood and could have implications down the road. “Designer babies” always come up in this context as well. Finally, equity in terms of access of these treatments is a concern given how expensive CRISPR based therapies are, as well as the facilities required to produce them.
What are the next big steps in CRISPR research that you're most excited about?
Richard: Combining higher throughput data generation with AI based learning represents an exciting avenue of research. We are already seeing advances in AI driven protein engineering that should couple well with genome wide efforts. Furthermore, genome level language models, trained on high throughput CRISPR data should allow us to further harness the power of biology to manufacture myriad products.
Lauren: The increased use of big data/ML to direct experiment design and target selection, particularly with scale-out and screening capabilities that allow for screening of 100-1000's of conditions/binders. I'm also excited about new delivery modalities and ways to create large batches of safely edited cells, including the possibility of bedside delivery of edited cells.
Learn more about the 7th International Conference on CRISPR Technologies.
Group Registration Discount: A discount of 15% is available for groups of 5 or more regular participants of the same affiliation (e.g., universities, research institutes or companies); it does not apply to students. Email syedh@aiche.org for Promo Code.
Conference Grants Available: Funding is available to help sponsor some registrations and travel costs. Students/post-docs and early-career professionals are encouraged to apply. This grant is made possible by the AIChE® Foundation and other generous supporting organizations. Apply today.
About SBE
Established in 2004, the Society for Biological Engineering is a technological community for engineers and applied scientists integrating biology with engineering. Members of SBE come from a broad spectrum of industries and disciplines and share in SBE’s mission of realizing the benefits of bioprocessing, biomedical, and biomolecular applications. Learn more about SBE.