 
Hello, I am Jeff Gold
and welcome to this segment of Under the Microscope.
Thanks so much for being with us today.
Our special guest today is Dr. Gurumurthy.
And Guru as I understand you are called,
carries multiple titles.
He is the Director of UNMC's Mouse Genome Engineering Core
and is also an Associate Professor
in the Department of Pharmacology,
Experimental Neuroscience in our College of Medicine.
Guru, thanks so much for being with us today.
And you know as some in our audience probably know
but maybe not all,
that you have recently been recognized for your work
in what is known as Easi-CRISPR
and maybe you could explain to me better
and to our audience
a little bit of what Easi-CRISPR is
and then we can talk about who cares?
Why is it so important?
Thank you for having me here.
So, actually I want to say that
like I work under the microscope all the time
and being under the microscope is kind of like
a pleasure to me here.
So I work on something called genetic engineering.
I am a scientist in genetic engineering.
What does that mean?
So, we all know like whether it is scientists
or students or clinicians or general public,
we know that like there is something called genes.
Yeah.
And genes control our body function.
Right.
Like breathing.
Or like touching or walking.
Sure, everything--
Everything, yes.
So, how did people know that genes control our function?
For example, there are genes that go bad in our body.
Like, p53, it causes cancer.
And, like sickle cell anemia
or Duchenne muscular dystrophy, so this--
And many, many, many others.
Many, many others.
So how did, let us step back about 30 years ago
when genetic engineering was not there.
How did people, or scientists come to know
the function of p53 gene?
So, how did they know is that
by taking that gene out from a small organism
like yeast, or drosophila, or a fly, or a mouse,
and studying whether it causes tumor.
Or, also like sickle cell anemia
you just take it out and see whether it causes disease.
So, this is, genetic engineering is a technology
where you can take out a gene,
or put the new gene in a small organism
and study how that functions.
So if you want to--
That is super.
Well, so that background.
What is Easi-CRISPR?
Sure, yeah.
So, genetic engineering, as I said,
it is a very, very complicated technology.
It used to take about two years,
three years to make one knockout mouse.
Like for example, knockout p53 mouse.
Now, Easi-CRISPR is a technology where
when you make a cut,
you want to insert a new copy of gene into that.
For example, if you want to correct sickle cell anemia
or if you want to correct p53,
you want to put the wild-type copy, that is the normal copy
of the p53 into the cut site.
So, how do you do that, like.
What people, with only in genetic engineering technologies,
people thought that like,
using double stranded DNA, because DNA is like double helix.
Sure, of course.
You make a cut,
and then, you put the double stranded DNA,
it will go inside, but it was not the case.
What we thought is,
when the double stranded DNA is cut,
it is looking for a single strand at the end,
and we added single stranded DNA.
And then, why don't we try the single stranded DNA?
And it is just a history now that,
we call this as Easi-CRISPR,
which stands for Efficient Additions
with Single Stranded DNA Inserts CRISPR.
I thought they called it Easi
because it was easy.
Easy.
And honestly it was very easy.
because like within like a span of six months
we had like gene number one, two, three, four,
like more than a dozen gene work.
And then when we submitted this to very high profile
journals, like Cell, Nature, and Science,
reviewers were thinking that this is too good to be true.
And, we could publish it very quick.
And then, we published in a another
So are there specific diseases
that are going to lend themselves
to either earlier diagnosis, prevention, or treatment
as a result of this technology?
Absolutely, actually you see
after we published Easi-CRISPR,
there were a couple of people who collaborated with us,
asking, hey can we try this for CAR-T therapy?
You must be knowing that--
Sure, for cancer.
For cancer exactly.
So we collaborated with a team in UCSF
where they demonstrated that using Easi-CRISPR,
you can engineer T-cells from patient,
and then introduce them back into,
say like, mouse, and cure their own cancer.
So, this would make the whole CAR-T therapy process,
easier, faster--
Easier, yes.
And possibly even more affordable?
Absolutely, yes.
Well that would be really powerful.
That is one example and there are a few other examples.
There is another thing called pediatric diseases,
like if you want to
take a patients sample and in the in-vitro,
you mutate those cells,
and then put them back into the patient,
and this was also proven in a recent paper
in Nature Communications just like a month ago, so.
So, it is really exciting and it is great to have you here.
Because this is clearly an important
technological breakthrough.
Thank you.
As we are so focused on, you know, what is know as
precision medicine and targeted therapies.
Yes.
The ability to be able to do rapid techniques
of this nature,
and that can be brought out in multiple disease states.
Absolutely, yes.
Is critically important.
Well I want to congratulate you.
I know you have received a lot of recognition.
Thank you.
And we are so pleased to have you
part of the Med Center team here.
Thank you very much.
Thanks for being with us today.
Thank you.
And thank you for being with us today on this segment
of Under the Microscope.
