Zhu, H. et al. Nat. Biomed. Eng. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-018-0318-7 (2018)

Need to get your gene editor to a specific tissue or organ in vivo? Magnets might do the trick, says a team of bioengineers from Rice University in Houston, Texas.

The researchers developed a novel delivery vehicle for a gene editor that consists of an inactivated baculoviral vector combined with magnetic nanoparticles. The vector is derived from a virus that infects the alfalfa looper moth and can efficiently carry large cargo, like lengthy CRISPR/Cas9 sequences, while the magnets can influence deep tissues without adverse effect. Once in the body (injected, in a mouse’s case, intravenously via the tail), you need only apply a small magnet near the desired editing site to release the editor there. The researchers demonstrate the system’s in vivo potential in mouse liver, spleen, and subcutaneous tumors.