Researchers from UMass Chan Medical School have received a five-year $13.6 million program project grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to develop new gene therapy models for alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, a chronic, debilitating genetic lung disease that shortens the lifespan.

Six UMass Medical School scientists are among the members of the National Institutes of Health’s Somatic Cell Genome Editing Consortium to publish a paper in Nature outlining the program’s goals.

A new study by a team of UMass Medical School researchers, led by Jordan Smith, MD/PhD candidate, has identified a new therapeutic target in hepatoblastoma, a rare, primarily pediatric liver cancer.

UMass Medical School cancer researcher Wen Xue, PhD, accepted a $250,000 grant Friday from the Hyundai Motor America Hope on Wheels campaign to continue his work toward improving care and treatment options for children with cancer.

According to a study published in Nature Biotechnology, a more efficient delivery of a CRISPR/Cas9 therapeutic to adult mice with the metabolic disease Tyrosinemia type I developed by Wen Xue, PhD, may also prove to be safer for use in humans.