AstraZeneca Sets Four CRISPR Deals

AstraZeneca has set up four collaborations to exploit the genome-editing method of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, or CRISPR, for drug research. Its partners are the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, England; the Broad and Whitehead Institutes in Cambridge, Mass; the Innovative Genomics Initiative between the University of California, Berkeley, and UC San Francisco; and the instrument firm Thermo Fisher Scientific. AstraZeneca says it will use the research tool widely to identify and validate drug targets in preclinical disease models. It will share cell lines and compounds with its partners and work with them to publish findings around the use of CRISPR.