Taipei, Oct. 13 (CNA) Feng Zhang (張鋒), a 2016 Tang Prize winner, explained his latest genome editing tool, called CRISPR/Cas13, in a meeting Wednesday with Tang Prize Foundation CEO Chern Jenn-chuan (陳振川) and a Nobel Prize laureate in Physiology or Medicine at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
CRISPR/Cas13 is a tool used to diagnose genes mutated in disease and conduct medical treatment more efficiently.
"It is important to reduce mistakes in genome editing and increase its accuracy, as the technique is now widely used and has developed rapidly," said Zhang.
Zhang shared the Tang Prize for biopharmaceutical science with scientists Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna last year for developing CRISPR/Cas9, a breakthrough genome-editing platform that promises to revolutionize biochemical research and disease treatment.
Also attending the meeting was Phillip Allen Sharp, a Nobel laureate and institute professor at the MIT Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, who praised Zhang's contributions on future research.
The Tang Prize, founded by Taiwanese billionaire Samuel Yin (尹衍樑) in 2012, aims to award those who have made significant contributions in the fields of sustainable development, biopharmaceutical science, sinology and rule of law.
(By Timothy J. Hwang and Isabel Wang)