Gene therapy: Triggering turning genes on and off with light

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U.S. researchers have developed a system, triggered by blue light, that can seek out and turn on or off any desired gene, which could be useful for research in biotechnology and in medicine.

This is the first time specific sections of DNA have been turned on and off. The researchers could control where and when a gene was turned on, and how quickly this happened. They also report tuning the level of gene expression using the intensity of the light in their paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

View the original article here: Gene therapy gets the blue light – Cosmos

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