In this week's Science, a team led by University of California, Berkeley, researchers presents new details about how the genome-editing technology CRISPR/Cas9 identifies and positions its target DNA. In the CRISPR process, the enzyme Cas9 is directed to its target by an RNA-DNA hybrid helix in an R-loop formation. Using crystallization techniques, the researchers took three-dimensional pictures of active Cas9 as well as of interactions between Cas9 proteins and the DNA strands that bend them at a 30-degree angle, providing "the structural distortion needed for R-loop formation." GenomeWeb has more on this here.
And in Science Translational Medicine, University of Oxford researcher Gabriele DeLuca and colleagues discuss the challenges facing clinician-researchers, including difficulties in obtaining financial support and a growing divide between clinical and research training programs. They note how Nobel Laureates in physiology or medicine are now largely non-clinically trained researchers compared with those prior to 1960, and call for the development of new training programs to facilitate translational research in the next generation of clinician-scientists.