OHSU Doctors Try 1st CRISPR Editing In The Body For Blindness

PORTLAND, Ore. – Scientists say they have used the gene editing tool CRISPR inside someone’s body for the first time.

It’s a new frontier for efforts to operate on DNA, the chemical code of life, to treat diseases.

The company that makes the treatment said Wednesday a patient recently had it done at the Casey Eye Institute at Oregon Health & Science University for an inherited form of blindness.

It may take up to a month to see if it worked.

The treatment uses CRISPR to delete a mutation that is preventing a gene from making a protein that’s needed for sight.