Knowledge, leadership, technology were the keywords of the 17^th World Knowledge Forum, held in Seoul from October 11-13, 2016. At the Forum, experts in politics, economics, and sciences presented their strategies on how to face the fourth industrial revolution.

KIM Jin-Soo, Director of the IBS Center for Genome Engineering and co-founder of ToolGen Inc. moderated the session "DNA Revolution: Gene Editing" which included Prof. KIM Jeong Hun (Seoul National University Hospital) and Dr KIM Seok Joong (ToolGen Inc).

▲ Kim Jin-Soo, Director of the Center for Genome Engineering and co-founder of ToolGen Inc. moderating the section about gene editing at the 17^th World Knowledge Forum in Seoul

The talks focused on CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats), the third generation DNA editing technique, which won Science's 2015 Breakthrough of the Year and was cited by the journal Nature as "the biggest game changer to hit biology since PCR".

Director Kim pointed out the advantages of CRISPR over the previous gene editing techniques as well as its issues. His research team was the first to apply the CRISPR-Cas9 technique to human cells and proved the specificity of CRISPR-Cpf1, a technique derived from CRISPR.

Kim Jeong Hun explained how he tested CRISPR for the treatment of age-related macular degeneration, an eye disease that can lead to blindness. CRISPR has several advantages over current therapies, for example, CRISPR could be a new option for the large number of patients who are refractory to the current anti-VEGF treatment.

▲ Kim Jeong Hun, Associate Professor at Seoul National University Hospital, presenting how CRISPR can be used to cure eye diseases

Finally, Dr Kim Seok Joong introduced ToolGen Inc., a Korean biotech venture founded in 1999 which specializes in the three gene-editing techniques (zinc fingers, TALENs and CRISPR). He highlighted the industrial value of CRISPR and its investment potentials. ToolGen Inc. filed patents for CRISPR gene editing, two patents were already granted by the Korean Intellectual Property Office and are currently under review in other countries. The company is hoping to conduct CRISPR clinical trials in the future.

▲ Kim SeoK Joong (ToolGen Inc, research director) presenting the features and potentials of ToolGen Inc.

IBS dedicated the Research Frontline section of the last issue of IBS magazine "IBS Research" to CRISPR. If you want to know more about CRISPR, click the 6th Issue.