On the Horizon

Leading news, knowledge, and industry trends in genetic research

Screening

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The clinical success rate of new oncology drugs is only 3.4% compared to 20.9% in other disease types (Wong et al, 2018). One contributing factor to this issue is the testing systems used, with two-dimensional (2D) monolayer assay formats as the traditional mainstay of high throughput screening. Although 2D monolayer assays have identified many successful drugs, it is increasingly recognized that they do not accurately model key aspects of the three-dimensional (3D) tumor environment. Therefore, the adoption of high throughput screening approaches using 3D assays to complement 2D approaches could substantially improve prediction of clinical outcomes and reduce the high failure rate of cancer drugs in clinical trials.



A revolution is under way in functional genomics which is spearheaded by the CRISPR-Cas9 system and its application to pooled genetic screening. Remarkable new tools, made possible by dCas9, are coming to fruition that will allow for a new kind of interrogation of gene function, allowing us to ask more sophisticated questions about the biology of drug targets.




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