There’s been a lot of talk in recent years about interdisciplinary projects. The idea is to put together people with different skillsets to address problems. The goal is for everyone to use their knowledge and experience to cross the divide to help solve problems in different fields. These partnerships can be particularly useful when it comes to medicine.
An example can be seen in the teaming up of MaxCyte, Inc. and the United States National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to create new ideas to fight chronic granulomatous disease (CGD).
This rare genetic disorder weakens the immune system’s ability to fight off bacterial infections. Essentially, the only current treatment for CGD is bone marrow transplantation from a similar, but not identical, donor. This type of transplant is riskier than self-transplants and exact match transplants due to the risk of rejection.
MaxCyte and NIAID are working with the Flow Electroporation™ Platform and the newest genetic technology—CRISPR/Cas9—to develop a new treatment option for people with CGD. CRISPR uses enzymes and RNA strains to target and edit damaged or mutated parts of the genome. CRISPR is expected to be able to edit the genetic code effectively while the Flow Electroporation Platform is needed to scale up and deliver the necessary effect.
