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018 HEALTH AND LABORATORY MAGAZINE

THE FIRST SCIENTIST AND

ENTREPRENEUR, DR. CIHAN TAŞTAN, WHO

STORES DIGITAL DATA IN DNA IN TURKEY:

FUTURE OF GENE THERAPY AND CRISPR

GENE EDITING

WE HAD A USEFUL INTERVIEW WITH DR. CIHAN TAŞTAN, ACIBADEM LABCELL CELL LABORATORY,
MOLECULAR BIOLOGIST / R&D OFFICER. WE TALKED ABOUT THEIR PROJECTS THAT HELPED
THEM BECOME PIONEERS IN TURKEY IN THE START OF GENETIC TREATMENTS.
WE TOUCHED UPON MANY FIELDS FROM GENE THERAPIES TO CRISPR TECHNIQUE, FROM
SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY TO DNA DATA STORAGE METHODS, FROM HIDNA TO LOCAL BIO-HACKERS.
WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK DR. CIHAN TAŞTAN ON BEHALF OF OUR READERS INTERESTED IN THE
SUBJECT, AND WISH YOU A PLEASANT READING.

You are working as an R&D in other genetic-based should focus on specific human cells with a maximum I work especially on genetic
Specialist at Acıbadem diseases. We have now problems, goals and objec- of 1% efficiency in our first engineering, gene therapies
LabCell Cell Laboratory to prepared our genetic tives. Although the funds experiments, we continued and synthetic biology. I
develop gene therapies. designs for diseases on our allocated to the academy to optimize without giving believe that the fields I
What do you do here? list such as Adenoleukodys- are limited, I believe that up because we knew that work in, which enable the
trophy, Duchenne Muscular sufficient research funding this technology would production of value-added
Acıbadem LabCell Labo- Dystrophy, β-Talesemia and has been provided to solve revolutionize the medicine. products in many fields I
ratory continues its studies Hemophilia. In the future, we many of our problems. When we showed within six call bioindustry, are better
especially in root cellular aim to be the first in the local months that we could delete understood by our country
therapies and cord blood production of genetic and Since 2012, researchers any desired target gene with day by day. I carry out my
banking under the leader- cellular therapies for these have started to perform 95% efficacy using lentiviral studies in every field that
ship of Prof. Dr. Ercüment diseases. genome modifications systems, no one had yet revolves around DNA, from
Ovalı. As Acıbadem Labcell with CRISPR technique by managed to demonstrate genetic treatments that will
Laboratory, we have been a What would you say about producing synthetic and effective genome modifi- end our external depend-
pioneer in Turkey in the start being a scientist in Turkey? specific DNA sequences cation in human immune ency in terms of drugs and
of genetic treatments as Do you find the studies that are similar to CRISPR system cells. CRISPR tech- ensure the improvement of
well as cellular treatments. conducted on science and DNA sequences. You have nology was a new turning many diseases at once, to
We performed the first genetics in our country actualized the project point in my doctoral thesis. the synthetic biology where
clinical trial with genetically sufficient? of developing CRISPR Two of our scientific articles, we can store any size of
modified cells in the history genome modification which we carried out with the information in DNA. In the
of Turkish Medicine in ALL I think in Turkey, the scien- techniques in human great influence of CRISPR near future, when countries
and NHL blood cancers in tists are in search. I also be- immune system cells. What technology during my PhD, enter a billions of dollars in
early 2019. We have now lieve there is a lack of goals did you experience in this were published in the journals an economic race in these
modified the cells we receive and objectives. Being an process? Nature Mucosal Immunology fields, we should try to pro-
from our patients using academician or a scientist is and Journal of Immunology. duce as much local know-
lentiviruses with our genetic not just finding an answer to In the first months of 2015, how as we can so that our
designs that can genetically a scientific question. Seeing I was in the middle of my Biotechnology, which country does not fall behind
recognize ALL and NHL the problems, turning them doctorate study. My counse- has been in our lives for in this race.
cancer types under special into questions and finding lor Prof. Dr. Derya Unutmaz almost half a century in
laboratory conditions (BSL3 an answer and a solution to (The Jackson Laborato- the industrial sense, has Recently, you have put
virus and GMP laboratories). them with scientific methods ry-Genomic Medicine), not only been a tool for your signature under an
We detected a significant are among the tasks of sci- who wanted an emergency the production of some important study, a first
reduction in the cancer bur- entists. In other words, hav- meeting one morning, asked economically useful in Turkey. After your
den of our patients clinically ing hundreds of universities me to stop my thesis studies. products in nature, but has NHL patient, you have
before the end of first two should show us that there She said that our new goal passed into a ‘synthetic’ also transplanted the
weeks. While these studies are thousands of scientists is to apply CRISPR / Cas9 revolution used to design genetically modified CAR-T
are continuing, we started who can find solutions to genome modification tech- new product combinations immune cell that you
our studies to use our ge- our hundreds of problems, nology in human immune or processes that are produced exclusively for
netic design and lentivirus invent products and let system cells. Although we not found in the nature. your second patient (ALL).
producing experiences in people up. For this reason, managed to optimize the What do you think about What did you experience in
clinical product standards I believe that our scientists genes we want to erase in ‘Synthetic Biology’? this process?