This week, we heard from Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna about the headline-grabbing story of Baby KJ, who suffered from a genetic disorder and received a custom treatment thanks to CRISPR gene editing, which Doudna helped develop.
The case grabbed headlines at the American Society for Gene Therapy conference last week. We learned that another Hawaiʻi researcher was there.
Assistant professor Jesse Owens works at the University of Hawaiʻi John A. Burns School of Medicine's Biogenesis Institute. He dropped by to talk about the progress he is making with his gene research, which he debuted at that conference. Like Doudna, Owens is also a Hilo High alum.
He also spoke to HPR in 2024 about developing a new technique to replace broken genes with healthy ones using a protein called integrase.
This story aired on The Conversation on May 30, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m.
