Vilnius University (VU) Life Sciences Center (LSC) biochemist Dr Stephen Knox Jones Jr. and the team he leads have been awarded a prestigious 1.2 million Euro grant. The European Research Council Starting Grant established by the European Research Council (ERC) is the first of its kind in Lithuania. It has been awarded to the scientist for the next five years to carry out the project “Nuclease profiling and off-target rearrangement to expand gene editing”, which aims to improve gene editing methods.
Great appreciation for Lithuanian science
“I would assess the significance of this grant on several levels: state, university and personal. At the national level, this means that Lithuania’s investment in science pays off: funds allocated for European-wide research return to Lithuania. This creates the cyclicality that is important for effective financing. On the other hand, this appraisal shows a very high level of academic research conducted in Lithuania.
Moreover, it is a great achievement for the entire university. Firstly, because of the important message to the community that it is achievable. Secondly, this event will have significant implications for the processes I call institutional memory. Since our application has won, the entire team that participated in the project submission phase have gained knowledge that they will be able to employ when preparing other projects of a similar scale in the future”, Dr S. K. Jones is assured.
For the researcher personally, this preparation of the application, which required enormous effort and detailed planning, is an external confirmation that he is on the right track: “Now that I have received funding, will I have complete freedom? Not really, because when you are given such an amount, you are expected to achieve big goals, which obliges. However, now, instead of thinking about money, I will be able to concentrate on science”.
The goal of the research is to expand and better adapt gene editing tools
The goal of the VU researcher and his team’s research “Nuclease profiling and off-target rearrangement to expand gene editing” combining chemistry, biology and epigenetics is to characterize a wide class of programmable nuclease types, with a focus on revealing their specificity mechanisms, in order to develop and employ next-generation biochemistry methods. They combine high-throughput DNA sequencing with classical biochemistry and bioinformatics.
“Gene editing makes it possible to change the genetic content of a living organism by changing the DNA sequences of cells. However, we aim to improve the available gene editing tools, make them safer and more widely used. In our project, we offer two ways to achieve this.
Firstly, nuclease profiling starts from the idea that gene editing relies on a programmable nuclease directed to find and cut specific genetic sequences, thereby editing them. Today, we have only a few gene editing technologies. However, when working with a different organism or gene, we may need different tools. Therefore, the first part of the project aims at expanding the set of gene editing technologies and demonstrating their operational capabilities”, the scientist explains.
The second part of the project is related to directing the programmable nuclease (the best-known type of which is the gene cutting and insertion technique CRISPR-Cas9, discovered by the team led by Prof. Virginijus Šikšnys, the Head of the Department of Protein-Nucleic Acid Interaction at the VU LSC Institute of Biotechnology) to another target. According to Dr S. K. Jones, the problem with this process is that the gene-editing tool, while directed to cut the target gene, can also edit another similar sequence along the way. Such inaccuracy can become a serious complication that is sought to be avoided. The research team will try to characterize the ability of each nuclease to cut target genes and find ways to apply these properties to improve gene editing technology.
Benefits for more efficient crop production and medical diagnostics
Gene-editing technologies that are more efficient in society can be beneficial in many areas. Firstly, the use of gene editing techniques in the food industry can create more nutritious and productive fruits, vegetables and grains, as well as more resistant varieties that can withstand the extreme weather caused by climate change. In addition, gene editing techniques could lead to more accurate disease diagnosis and more effective treatment.
“Gene editing and the ability to correct organisms could also be useful in slowing down our contribution to climate change. So there is a lot of potential in these studies, which are being conducted by a team of six people led by me as well as other scientists”, the scientist asserts.
In 2022, 2,932 applications were submitted for the ERC grants for beginning researchers, 408 of which were selected for funding after two rounds of selection. These grants are awarded to researchers 2–7 years after the award of the PhD degree. This is the first time that Lithuania receives ERC support for beginning researchers. The grant amounts to 1.2 million Euros for a period of 5 years.
During the fifteen years of existence of the program funded by the European Commission, this is the second time that Lithuania has received an ERC grant. The first European Research Council Advanced Grant was awarded in 2017 to Prof. Saulius Klimašauskas, the Head of the Department of Biological DNA Modification of the VU LSC Institute of Biotechnology. ERC grants are European Commission-funded support for researchers to carry out scientific research activities. The purpose of these grants is to support high-level projects of already recognized and independent scientists, to promote the creativity of researchers, and to strengthen the progress of European science.