Dr Doug Mountfort, currently Director of Tasman Biotech & Biopharm Consultants, has had an illustrious career in scientific research, including 35 years at the Cawthron Institute and as a visiting scientist at numerous prestigious research laboratories in Europe and the USA. In this presentation, he will talk about exciting developments in the gene editing tool, CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats). This technology is now used in research, medicine, and agriculture. Dr Mountfort will cover the key developments in molecular biology that have made CRISPR possible, outline the basic principles of the method, and explain its advantages over other gene editing tools. He will also discuss ethical issues that need to be addressed in the use of this technology and regulatory challenges. Finally, he will detail big strides in the application of the method over the past few years, from cancer to agriculture.

Supported with funding from the TDC Community Grant.