End of the Year Report (2023)

As GEML embarks on its fifth year, we reflect on a transformative journey. From shaping the ETH “Hub” landscape to impacting gene and cell therapy in Europe, our accomplishments are now vividly captured in our 2023 year-in-review. This Infographic not only encapsulates the past year's milestones, but also charts our current growth and ambitious pathways for the future.
As always, we look forward to inspiring more interactions with you. to us to discuss your projects, share ideas, and discover common themes, laying the foundation for exciting collaborations ahead.

Wishing you a healthy and productive 2024!

NEW grant!

We are excited to enter a new partnership with the IUF-Leibniz in Düsseldorf and Institut Imagine in Paris to optimize next generation genome editing. In particular, we will explore strategies to enhance the efficiency of Prime Editing in therapeutically relevant cell types and contexts. The work will be supported by a external page AFM-Téléthon Research Grant. 

Stay tuned for more!

Life Science @ETH 2023

The Life Science@ETH Retreat was a fantastic event that brought together many key people across different ETH deparments; making the time in their busy schedule to reflect on the other deparments' mission and competences and thus identify potential new synergies.

It was our honor to be invited and present the GEML Hub concept.

T-FITNESS project information

Cancers pose a considerable challenge to our society, science/technology, and economy. Cell based immunotherapies have emerged as a powerful approach for combating liquid tumors such as blood malignancies, but their effectiveness against solid tumors is limited. A major obstacle is T-cell exhaustion, a condition originally observed in chronic infections and characterised by limited or complete absence of effector function.
The T-Fitness consortium aims to engineer T-cells refractory to exhaustion by developing and introducing synthetic circuits capable of rewiring the transcriptional programs that control this dysfunctional state.

You can find more details about the involved partners and up-to-date information on the consortium activities on our external page website.

EDITSCD project information

A single amino acid substitution in the beta-globin chain of adult hemoglobin is responsible for Sickle Cell Disease (SCD), a complex exemplification of mutant Hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell (HSPC) dysfunction. The EU-funded EDITSCD project aims to understand the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying SCD HSPC dysfunctions and evaluate the impact of genome editing approaches on SCD HSPCs. Our ultimate goal is to improve the SCD gene therapy strategy and evaluate the best tools and protocols for HSPC-based genome editing therapies.

You can find more details about the involved partners and up-to-date information on the consortium activities on our external page website.

geneTIGA project information

Chronic diseases caused by adverse immune reactions affect over 10% of the global population. Cell therapy strategies based on genome-edited T-cells have generated substantial excitement among researchers and clinicians, but optimisation of efficacy, safety, and cost are required to propel their wide-spread adoption. Taking IgA nephropathy as a model, the geneTIGA consortium is working towards establishing a blueprint approach to sustainably combat several immune diseases and cancers related to B-cell pathologies. 

You can find more details about the involved partners and up-to-date information on the consortium activities on our external page website.

Triennial Report (2020-2022)

As one of the first ETH “Hubs”, GEML pioneered the concept of an agile and creative structure to guide cutting-edge developments out of individual labs to broader usage and platform adoption. From this initial idea, GEML has organically grown to help make ETH and the Zürich research community world leaders in the fast-paced field of genome editing.
During these three first years of GEML's life, we have worked hard to make the latest genome engineering methods more broadly available. By establishing collaborations and publishing high profile research, we are proud that our expertise is now recognized and engaged on multiple levels. On one hand, we participate in multiple Swiss- and EU-funded consortia for the development of innovative and effective genome engineering applications. On the other hand, these academic achievements have led to intense interest in GEML from local and international start-ups and established biotech companies looking to tap into our next generation genome editing tools. Moreover, GEML is a central participant in Europe-wide consortia whose work will influence the landscape of gene and cell therapy. 

We are pleased to share our Inforgaphic summarizing our first three years with all of you. As always, we hope to stimulate more of you to with us for discussing projects, ideas, and finding common themes to establish exciting collaborative projects moving forward.

Three EU-Horizon grants Awarded

We are excited to announce that GEML is part of three newly awarded EU-Horizon grants. The overarching aim of all projects is to streamline the generation of Gene and Cell Therapy Products. In collaboration with Prof. Corn’s external page Lab of Genome Biology, we will test and compare different genome engineering reagents in human cell lines and primary cells. GEML's leading part of the projects will be to use our powerfull Off-Target Identification portfolio to profile the nominated genome engineering reagents and methodologies in different cellular contexts. We will also work closely with our European partners to translate those findings to donor samples in a pre-clinical setting.

As a Swiss project partner and due to Switzerland's current status, we will not be funded by the European Commission (EC) but rather through ‘Direct Funding’ by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (external page SERI). We are thankful to SERI for its quick reflexes in addressing this issue, and hope that Switzerland will soon be back as an associated country, so that these multinational collaborative efforts can continue to bring concrete solutions to some of society's greatest challenges.

More information and links to the projects coming soon.

End of the Year Report (2021)

We are pleased to share our 2021 year report with all of you. You can now get an overview of what we did during the last year. We hope our Infographic will stimulate more of you to with us for discussing projects, ideas, and finding common themes to establish exciting collaborative projects.

BRIDGE-Discovery Grant CRISPeD

We are excited to announce that our project CRISPeD, a collaboration with Prof. Loic Pellissier and the Landscape Ecology Group will be supported by the 5th BRIDGE-Discovery Call. The joined external page Innosuisse and external page SNSF funding scheme external page BRIDGE Discovery is aimed at experienced researchers from all disciplines who wish to realise an innovation with great social or economic impact. CRISPeD goal is to develop methods for targeting specific species in environmental DNA (eDNA) samples for ecological monitoring. Our aim is to deploy a simple, robust, and scalable method to support timely and informed decisions in ecosystem management. The project will run for 48 months. To strengthen our team immediately, we are looking for a post-doctoral researcher to work on in silico and in vitro assay development. More information about the position and application procedure can be found here.

OFF-target Identification for safe gene therapy application in primates

A great example of how GEML can support the development and application of genome engineering tools: this  to discuss options.

Reference:

Rothgangl, T., Dennis, M. K., Lin, P., Oka, R., Witzigmann, D., Villiger, L., Qi, W., Hruzova, M., Kissling, L., Lenggenhager, D., Borrelli, C., Egli, S., Frey, N., Bakker, N., Walker, J. A., 2nd, Kadina, A. P., Victorov, D. V., Pacesa, M., Kreutzer, S., Kontarakis, Z., … Schwank, G. (2021). In vivo adenine base editing of PCSK9 in macaques reduces LDL cholesterol levels. Nature biotechnology, 10.1038/s41587-021-00933-4.

Time for CHANGE

Developments in the CRISPR field are fast. GEML's mission is to provide you with access to the best methods and techniques, even if this means we need to constantly adapt and optimise our workflows. Less than a year after the publication of CHANGE-seq (external page Lazzarotto et al, Nature Biotechnology, 15 June 2020), we officially make this new method available to users as one of our OFF-Target identification services. CHANGE-seq is replacing CIRCLE-seq as our in vitro OFF-Target identification method of choice. For identifying OFF-Targets in a cellular context the GUIDE-seq pipeline is still available while we are gradually moving towards the improved iGUIDE strategy. You can find more info regarding OFF-Target identification in GEML in our applications section.

PnB Designer Paper published

The paper describing external page PnB Designer, our shiny app for designing Prime and Base Editor experiments is finally out! PnB Designer is a collaborative effort between GEML and the external page CornLab. We wanted to provide a user friendly interface that can cut through the details and filter out the appropriate Genome Editor(s) best suited for each application. Whether you work with animal or plant cells, if you need to correct or introduce nucleotide substitutions or small indels (INsertions or DELetions), PnB designer is where you should start from. Try it out and contact us for discussing how we can generate and apply these tools together.

- More info on the PnB Designer publication in the D-BIOL News Article here.

- Access the full paper at external page BMC Bioinformatics.

- Get a glimpse on how PnB Designer compares to other guideRNA design tools external page here.

End of the Year Report (2020)

We are pleased to share our 2020 year report with all of you. You can now get an overview of what we did during our first year, and how we would like to switch gears to move forward into the New Year. We hope our Infographic will thus also stimulate you to us for discussing projects, ideas, and finding common themes to establish exciting collaborative projects.

                                  Best wishes for a healthy and productive New Year 2021!

Review Paper out from GEML

Besides our dedication to technology development and support, we also investigate how different genome engineering interventions affect gene expression and ultimately cellular phenotypes (see  us! And if you think our research interests align with yours, we are always looking forward to opportunities for synergy.

Welcome to Rafaela - Sep 2020

GEML is growing! Rafaela Cássio joins as our new Genome Engineering Specialist. With her expertise in Molecular Biology and Protein Biochemistry, Rafaela will strengthen GEML's team and allow us to consolidate and expand our services and research. 

The first online Prime and Base editing design tool available from GEML

Do you want to introduce small genome edits in your cell line or model system? Or maybe you want to correct a mutation? Try our new for more information on how to generate and apply these tools.

Illumina NextSeq2000

GEML is introducing the first external page NextSeq2000 in Europe. This new Illumina NGS platform offers increased output therefore supporting a wide range of genome engineering related applications. You can find out more on the external page FGCZ wepage.

Sample Courier Between Hönggerberg and Irchel

To facilitate FGCZ operations between the Hönggerberg (GEML) and Irchel (FGCZ) Campuses, we have introduced a weekly courier for samples. Every Thursday samples will be transfered from GEML to FGCZ and vice versa. Take advantage of this new service and convenietly external page submit your sample at the closest site. Just make sure you have provided all relevant information in your project in external page b-fabric.