I am incredibly grateful for the contributions of my co-authors, including Katrina Poljakov, Youngseo Jwa, Molly Cassidy, and others, as well as our collaborators in the lab of @justintaylorlab.bsky.social .

They key here is (1) selecting a target sequence that produces a high fraction of desired editing outcomes, and (2) targeting stem cells in a manner that does not impede their ability to expand.

Leveraging two small animal models, we showed that edited cells can still develop into different immune cell types that express the antibody transgene, including B and plasma cells. These results demonstrate that low editing levels are sufficient to achieve biologically relevant antibody levels.

In this study, we show that we can modify stem cells to express antibodies against HIV. We used CRISPR/Cas12a to knock-in transgenes at the endogenous locus for antibody expression. This is a one-step process that can be done without viral vectors.