Towards a Sequencing of the Human Immune System: Is Immuno-Editing Far Behind?

Towards a Sequencing of the Human Immune System: Is Immuno-Editing Far Behind?
by Lee J.Keller

Yesterday, I came across a news story in the newsfeeds--where said story reported that a group of scientists has commenced upon the task of sequencing the human immune system. The article cited research that was reported on in the journal Nature and summarized in the Eureka Alert news feed. (I posted this link in my Lee J Keller Twitter Feed and the link(s) are also shown at the end of this blog entry). 

The EurekAlert described the human immune system as "...billions of times larger than the human genome." It also reported that the process of sequencing immunoreceptors could lead to new antibody targets for vaccines and therapeutics that could change whole populations. The implications for related fields such as immunology, immunotherapy, and medicine are likely enormous.

Spearheaded by a joint project of scientists from Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the San Diego Supercomputing Center; advances from computing applications, immunology, genomics, and the Human Vaccines Project is making this research possible. 

It leads me to wonder (and speculate) that as CRISPR Cas9 gene editing followed research and sequencing in genomics; can an effective immuno-editing platform be far behind?  See below for an update about this).~~LJK

related links:



cited study with an abstract from Nature:  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-0934-8

UPDATE: And of course couldn't CRISPR itself be used in editing immune cells or antibodies?

Comments