BLADE Directed Evolution of SaCas9 gRNAs Improves Gene Editing Efficiency

Dr. Sullenger obtained his PhD from Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences where he published the first paper on therapeutic aptamers in 1990. He obtained postdoctoral training at the University of Colorado where he learned SELEX in the Cech lab working with Larry Gold, Craig Tuerk and Jennifer Doudna. He has been on the faculty at Duke University for 30 years working on the creation and translation of RNA therapeutics. Therapeutic aptamers from his lab have been/are being evaluated in nine clinical trials in over 2,000 patients.

Dr. Telmo Llanga is a NHGRI F99/K00 fellow who obtained his PhD in Pharmacology at Dr. Bruce Sullenger’s laboratory in 2025. Dr. Llanga is currently a Postdoctoral Trainee at the Dr. Emma Chory’s Laboratory at Duke University exploring the interface of PACE and SELEX directed evolution. Prior to graduate school Dr. Llanga trained for 4.5 years full time under Dr. Matthew Hirsch and Dr. Jude Samulski at the UNC Gene Therapy Center, where he obtained his first exposure to science and publications as a first author.