A CRISPR future for cardiac health

CRISPR became big in 2025, bringing advances for serious Indian health risks, which will continue in the coming year

- SREYA DEB

CRISPR (CLUSTERED REGULARLY Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats), the new gene-editing technology that claims to reduce blood cholesterol levels by more than half, has revolutionised the landscape of biomedical research and gene therapy.

The good news is, it is expected to make an entry in the market in the next five years or so, according to Dr Sam Kulkarni, the CEO of CRISPR Therapeutics, the biotechnology company headquartered in Switzerland that is conducting the research. With the technology having been successfully administered to a small phase-1 trial group of four individuals, doctors and researchers are now working on making the therapy scalable and affordable.

For India, the therapy may prove particularly path-breaking, given the significant burden of cardiovascular issues and heart diseases prevailing in the country. While doctors are optimistic about the potential of CRISPR tech in Indian healthcare, they say that it can be seen in action perhaps five to ten years from now, with mass administration still being a few more years away. On November 19, the Union Ministry of Science and Technology launched BIRSA 101, India's first CRISPR-based gene therapy for curing sickle cell disease, on the 150th anniversary of freedom fighter Birsa Munda. Now that the ball has already been set to rolling, inventions and advances in new genome therapies can also be expected, with the newly inaugurated research and translational facility, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (CSIR-IGIB).

A potential 'game changer'