CRISPR’s next act: the companies editing the epigenome to treat disease

In late 2021, Amber Salzman interviewed for a job that she had no intention of taking. A relatively new start-up company, called Epicrispr Biotechnologies, was looking for a chief executive, and it was keen on vetting Salzman — who had decades of experience in the pharmaceutical industry — for the role. She had said yes to the meeting only as a favour to a recruiter, who had helped her to fill a key position at another company she had worked with. Joining the start-up wasn’t something she was enthusiastic about. Halfway through the meeting, she changed her mind. Salzman had watched as Stanley Qi, the founder of Epicrispr, drew diagrams on a whiteboard explaining that the company wanted to make a genetic therapy — not by editing the code itself, but by changing the chemical markers attached to DNA, which can switch genes on or off. Then Salzman asked another team member: “‘What disease are we going after?’ And she said, ‘FSHD’.” How ageing changes our genes — huge epigenetic atlas gives clearest picture yet Salzman knew the condition all too well. FSHD, short for facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, is an inherited disorder in which muscle problems first begin in the face and upper body and can spread to other parts, sometimes requiring wheelchair use. Salzman’s husband of more than 35 years had several cousins and a grandmother with the disease, although he had not inherited it himself. …