Aharon Aharon, CEO of the Innovation Authority: "The CRISPR-IL consortium will allow Israeli industry to be at the forefront of global efforts in the field of genomic editing, while recruiting the best scientists and innovative technologies developed in Israel. The association will bring under it industrial companies from various fields and research groups, which will jointly develop advanced technological solutions that are expected to affect the fields of medicine, agriculture and animals"
The Research Committee for Technological Infrastructures of the Innovation Authority approved the establishment of the CRISPR-IL consortium with a total funding of 36 million NIS for a period of 18 months (with the option of extension for a period of another 18 months). The consortium is part of the Bio-convergence program led by the Innovation Authority and will include companies from industry and various academic groups, will focus on combining artificial intelligence technologies and CRISPR technology to develop advanced computing tools for genomic editing.
Aharon Aharon, CEO of the Innovation Authority: "The CRISPR-IL consortium will allow Israeli industry to be at the forefront of global efforts in the field of genomic editing, while recruiting the best scientists and innovative technologies developed in Israel. The association will bring under it industrial companies from various fields and research groups, which will jointly develop advanced technological solutions that are expected to affect the fields of medicine, agriculture and animals."
This association is part of the Bio-Convergence program - led by the Innovation Authority which combines biology with engineering disciplines such as electronics, AI, physics, computing, nanotechnology, materials science and integrative technologies such as the combination of cellular and genetic therapy, which form the basis for the development of the BC field , and provide answers to challenges in the field of medicine or other fields such as agriculture, energy and the military.
Maged Crisper will have partners from the fields of biotechnology, the pharmaceutical industry, agriculture, bioinformatics and fishery products, as well as leading researchers from the research institutions: Bar Ilan University, Tel Aviv University, the Weizmann Institute, Ben Gurion University, the Hebrew University and the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center. Research groups from the Sheba and Schneider hospitals are also partners in the association.
The new association will harness advanced artificial intelligence technologies for the development of computational tools that will allow for the improvement of the accuracy and efficiency of genomic editing and will enable the rapid and efficient assimilation of these tools in industry and research. The field of genomic editing, which consists of technologies that allow changes to be made in the genetic material, received a tremendous boost with the discovery of the CRISPR system (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic repeats) and the understanding of the enormous potential for the variety of areas of life.
CRISPR technology allows cutting in a specific area of DNA, silencing or activating genes and replacing a DNA segment with another segment. The technology has a huge potential for impact in the fields of medicine, agriculture and animals, and among the potential uses are: the development of advanced and personalized medical treatments, the repair of genes involved in diseases, the improvement of the properties of agricultural produce, the shortening of the time required to develop new products and the reduction of the cost of development. According to estimates, by 2025 the size of the market for products based on Crisper technologies will be approximately 500 billion dollars.
However, widespread application of the technology still needs to overcome significant barriers. The tools that exist today for genomic editing provide limited efficiency and accuracy that may result in making a change in an unwanted region of the genome and have significant economic and safety consequences. Performing efficient and accurate editing requires accurate identification of the target site, planning the tools required for the specific editing operation, and predicting the results in advance - and this is what the members of the CRISPR-IL Association will strive for.
Association members
Industry: Energy Technologies, Avogen, Terviat Rahn, Pluristem, BTG - General Biotechnology, Zarea Seeds, Callers Farms, Targetgen Biotechnologies.
Academic groups: Tel Aviv University - Professor Tamir Toler, Professor Itai Miroz and Dr. David Burstein, Ben Gurion University - Prof. Amir Shagia, Dr. Isana Wexler-Loblinsky, Bar Ilan University - Dr. Eil Hander, The Hebrew University - Dr. Oren Farnes, Weizmann Institute - Prof. Avi Levy, Prof. Assaf Aharoni, Interdisciplinary Center - Prof. Zohar Yakhini, Schneider Hospital - Prof. Shai Yizraeli, Sheba Hospital - Dr. Michal Baser.
Use of CRISPR for gene therapy purposes
Florism, which operates in the field of restorative medicine and develops a platform for biological drugs, announced that it was chosen to be a member of the CRISPR-IL consortium, which includes companies and entities and is funded by the Israel Innovation Authority. The CRISPR-IL consortium connects experts in the life sciences and computer sciences from academia, medicine and industry, for the purpose of developing artificial intelligence (AI) technologies based on solutions for end-to-end genomic editing. The next generation of products based on the genomic editing of DNA in different species can be applied to humans, plants and animals, in the pharmaceutical, agricultural and aquaculture industries. Racheli Ofir, Pluristem's VP of Research and Intellectual Property, will lead the CRISPR-IL pharma team.
CRISPR is a genome editing technology for discovering and changing DNA sequences, which is used as a tool to create genetic changes. The technology enables the development of unique biological products and innovative medical treatment while shortening the development process and reducing its cost.
The genomic editing by CRISPR is indeed aimed at a certain region of the DNA, but there are still several challenges in using this method, which prevent a more widespread use of the method, among them: (a) Undirected editing in different regions of the genome (b) Inefficiency in editing (c) Lack of with accurate measuring tools to examine the effectiveness of genetic editing.
The CRISPR-IL association will work to develop an artificial intelligence (AI)-based system that will improve the genome editing work processes for users. The system will provide a comprehensive solution, starting from a user interface to a precise measurement of the efficiency of genomic editing. The system is expected to include computational planning of DNA editing at the target site, with a minimal number of unintended edits, improve the efficiency of genomic editing and provide an accurate measurement tool that will verify that the editing was carried out as planned.
CEO and President of Pluristem, Yaki Yanai said: "CRISPR technology creates new technological possibilities in the field of personalized medicine and restorative medicine. We see cellular therapy and genomic editing as highly synergistic methods for treating and curing diseases with advanced technologies. Pluristem is pleased to bring its allogeneic cell therapy and manufacturing expertise to CRISPR-IL and lead the development of the next generation of allogeneic cellular therapies for the treatment of current and future diseases. Our future product development strategy leverages Pluristem's established PLX platform to integrate CRISPR-IL technology, while opening new opportunities to expand the company's product portfolio."
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