Doudna awarded NHGRI grant for CRISPR-based research

Jennifer Doudna and Feng Zhang have received separate grants from the National Human Genome Research Institute for CRISPR technology-based projects they both say have the potential to advance the tool's usefulness for human health purposes.

The University of California, Berkeley's Doudna will receive $2.1 million to set up and run the Center for Genome Editing and Recording (CGER). According to Doudna's grant proposal, the center will address the challenges of accurately interrogating and manipulating DNA sequences in situ "at a scale and level of accuracy not currently available" by developing technologies based on CRISPR-Cas9 that can "detect, alter and record the sequence and output of the genome in individual cells and tissues."