This week on Crystallise, Ash discusses analysing the DNA of ancient poo to discover how our gut microbiome has changed over the millennia. Rosie shares some brand new research where gene editing was used to lower cholesterol - potentially permanently - in primates, and could soon be available for humans.     

Episode Sources. 

• Piles of ancient poop reveal ‘extinction event’ in human gut bacteria. 
• In vivo CRISPR base editing of PCSK9 durably lowers cholesterol in primates. 
• One-time CRISPR hit lowers cholesterol in monkeys. 
• Got mutation? ‘Base editors’ fix genomes one nucleotide at a time.  

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Music:   

AhDah Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com).   
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.   
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.