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The ӳý today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued the first patent for an engineered CRISPR-Cas9 system that is enabling scientists to modify genes and better understand the biology of living cells and organisms. The institute applied for the patent in concert with the January 3, 2013 publication in Science (Cong, et al.) that described the use of the CRISPR enzyme, Cas9, for genome editing.

What: Glioblastoma, the most common and most aggressive form of brain cancer in adults, remains effectively incurable. Evidence suggests that “stem-like” cells help drive this difficult-to-treat disease. These cells may possess properties that give them the ability to resist treatment and drive cancer’s growth, but pinpointing them and understanding the circuitry that makes them behave the way they do has been a major challenge.

What: Researchers from the ӳý, the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI), and Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) used an eclectic combination of cutting-edge technologies to determine what’s going wrong at the molecular level in the neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Their research, published online this week in two separate Cell journals, sheds light on the mechanisms that lead to the disease and highlights potential targets for new treatments.

This week, ӳý scientific director of vertebrate genome biology Kerstin Lindblad-Toh became one of the first recipients of a new long-term research grant from the Swedish Research Council. The program, known as , provides Swedish scientists with 10 years of flexible funding to support ambitious, long-term projects. Lindblad-Toh is one of only nine researchers selected to receive the inaugural award.