After the great success in 2018, the second edition of the Masterclass “Gene editing and its applications 2.0” took place on January 14, 2022. The event was organised with a lot of enthusiasm by Oncode Investigators Jarno Drost & Ruben van Boxtel (both Princess Maxima Center), who invited several experts in this exciting field and set up a practical “design your own” session.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the event was hosted online. A positive side of that was that it allowed a larger number of participants to join. The audience highly appreciated the masterclass, which perfectly combined theory with a practical approach. Over 60 participants and 5 speakers from seven different institutes attended the event, discussing the technical advancements and usage of gene editing techniques using the CRISPR/Cas9 toolbox.
The program of the event was divided into two parts. The first part of the day was filled with lectures about the different applications of gene editing by a variety of speakers including Roderick Beijersbergen, Jos Jonkers, Gerald Schwank, Benedetta Artegiani, and Maarten Geurts, covering topics ranging from current state of the art, model systems used within the field to the potential application of the technology.
The program of the second part of the day had a practical hands-on approach. Three different “design your own” break-out sessions were set up:
- Base editing
- CRISPR screens and
- Endogenous gene tagging
What was new is that participants were asked beforehand to send in their idea and/or problem for one of these topics. This offered the participants the opportunity to ask the experts for their feedback on questions related to their own experimental designs. Participants had the chance to talk to experts in the field about their own research needs and how these applications of gene editing could help their own research moving forward. In addition, the participants got the chance to gain more insights into the technical knowhow that is available within Oncode and get a better understanding of who to approach for specific research questions.
Our next masterclass single molecule imaging is planned on March 24, 2022. Led by Tineke Lenstra (NKI) and Marvin Tanenbaum (Hubrecht Institute), it will provide an overview of different single-molecule imaging modalities and will give participants the opportunity to see several microscopes in action, learn how to analyse single-molecule imaging data and brainstorm about applications for their own research. Interested? There are still a few spots available!
For further masterclasses, please keep an eye on our Event Page.
If you have any questions or would like to get involved, please contact: