Potential Application of CRISPR Technology in the Development of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors

Cancer has already become one of the major factors impacting the life expectancy of humans. From long ago, treatments for different types of cancer have been developed in many ways. Among many technologies applied to cancer treatment, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) gene editing and Immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) are two popular technologies. Currently, there have already been mature treatments for some of the cancers based on these two technologies. Many studies have been conducted to develop new treatments based on CRISPR or ICI, and there are also many ongoing studies in the meantime. However, the potential combination of the two technologies has not been noticed as much as the technologies by themself. This essay provides a basic description of CRISPR gene editing and ICIs as cancer treatment and discusses the potential combination of the two technologies in the field of cancer immunology and the challenges researchers might have to face during the development of new treatments.