Dr Diego Orzáez, CSIC Research Scientist at the Plant Molecular Biology Institute (IBMCP) in Valencia, Spain, held a seminar on the application of CRISPR tools in plants on the afternoon of 2 February 2022. The one-hour seminar entitled “New CRISPR tools for genome editing and gene regulation in plants” included a question and answer session.
The genetic engineering tools derived from CRISPR/Cas nucleases are evolving very rapidly, providing us with a wide range of new applications in plant biotechnology, from directed mutagenesis to gene targeting and gene regulation. The seminar covered some of the most recent advances in CRISPR/Cas technology as applied to plants, emphasizing new approaches for the regulation of gene expression. Dr Orzáez talked about the latest results from his laboratory, including the design of programable activators, CRISPR-regulated synthetic promoters, and protein-based inhibitors of CRISPR/Cas.
Dr Orzáez investigated plant programmed cell death in the laboratory of Antonio Granell for his PhD and was then a Marie-Curie postdoctoral fellow in the Ernst Woltering laboratory in Wageningen before starting work on plant biofactories in the Arjen Schots laboratory. In 2004, he returned to Spain as a Ramón y Cajal fellow and became CSIC Tenured Scientist in 2009. Currently, Dr Orzáez co-leads the Plant Genomic and Biotechnology Group at the IBMCP-CSIC, where he is the principal investigator of several national and EU projects in the field of genome engineering and plant biofactories. He is interested in engineering plants to improve the synthesis of added-value products.
Image credit: CRISPR/Cas9 by Ernesto del Aguila III, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health. Public domain image (CC PDM 1.0).