In Vivo CRISPR Success, Bio-Carbon Capture, and Nanofaceted Superconductors

The boundaries of clinical medicine, environmental chemistry, and quantum materials have expanded significantly this week with three milestone studies. From the first-ever successful Phase 3 trial of a systemic in vivo gene-editing therapy to a circular carbon-capture sorbent made from industrial food waste, researchers are finding creative ways to address global health and climate crises. Concurrently, a breakthrough in nanoscale substrate engineering is paving the way for high-temperature superconductors that can survive extreme magnetic environments.

🔬 In Vivo CRISPR Triumph: First Phase 3 Trial for Intravenous Gene-Editing Succeeds

Gene editing has officially entered a new era of clinical maturity. In a landmark study published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the European Academy of Allergy & Clinical Immunology (EAACI) Annual Congress 2026, researchers have successfully completed the first-ever international, double-blind Phase 3 trial for an in vivo CRISPR therapy. The trial, named HAELO, evaluated the candidate lonvoguran ziclumeran (lonvo-z, formerly known as NTLA-2002), developed by Cambridge-based Intellia Therapeutics. The results demonstrate that a single, one-time intravenous infusion can safely and permanently treat hereditary angioedema (HAE), a debilitating and potentially life-threatening genetic disorder.

Hereditary angioedema is characterized by severe, painful, and unpredictable swelling attacks affecting the skin, abdomen, and airway. The condition is caused by genetic mutations that lead to overproduction of bradykinin, a peptide that promotes vascular permeability. Traditional therapies require lifelong, frequent intravenous or subcutaneous injections to manage the disease. In contrast, lonvo-z utilizes CRISPR-Cas9 machinery packaged in lipid nanoparticles to navigate to the liver and permanently knock out the kallikrein B1 (KLKB1) gene, which code-translates for the precursor protein of bradykinin, addressing the root cause of HAE directly inside the patient's body.

In the HAELO trial, which enrolled patients worldwide, a single infusion of lonvo-z led to a remarkable 87% relative reduction in mean monthly HAE attacks compared to the placebo group over a six-month evaluation period. Even more strikingly, 62% of patients receiving the active therapy became completely attack-free and required no further medical intervention, compared to just 11% of the placebo group. The treatment also reduced the need for rescue medications by 89% and showed a highly favorable safety profile, with only mild transient side effects. This historic milestone represents the first time a systemic, in vivo gene-editing therapy has cleared the high bar of a pivotal Phase 3 trial, paving the way for a Biologics License Application (BLA) submission to the U.S. FDA and marking a watershed moment for genetic medicine.

♻️ Circular Carbon Capture: ETH Zurich Turns Dairy and Tofu Waste into Direct Air Capture Sorbents

As the urgency of the climate crisis intensifies, scaling up Direct Air Capture (DAC) of carbon dioxide has become a core priority for environmental researchers. However, conventional DAC technologies rely heavily on synthetic, energy-intensive, and often toxic chemical sorbents to capture CO2 from the atmosphere. To break this bottleneck, materials scientists at ETH Zurich, led by Professor Raffaele Mezzenga, have turned to an unexpected source: protein-rich liquid waste from the dairy and tofu industries. Their study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), introduces an organic, biodegradable, and highly efficient carbon-capture bead.

The research team extracted proteins from industrial waste streams—specifically cheese whey and tofu run-off—and denatured them to assemble into long, thread-like structures called amyloid fibrils. These nanofibrous protein networks were then combined with potassium hydroxide, a standard CO2-reacting chemical, and shaped into porous, lightweight beads measuring between 0.5 and 1 centimeter in diameter. The result is a highly structured, bio-based sponge where the amyloid fibrils serve as a sturdy, high-surface-area skeleton that supports and stabilizes the active potassium hydroxide.

In laboratory trials, the hybrid amyloid-protein beads exhibited an outstanding capacity for carbon capture, absorbing 97 milligrams of CO2 per gram of material. This performance outperforms many conventional, purely synthetic DAC sorbents by 10% to 50%. Furthermore, because the beads are organic and biodegradable, they can be easily recycled or safely disposed of at the end of their lifecycle—potentially even acting as nitrogen-rich agricultural fertilizers. The process also bypasses the extremely high-temperature heating cycles (often exceeding 800°C) required to release trapped carbon in traditional systems, utilizing a mild chemical wash that drastically lowers the energy footprint of carbon capture.

⚡ Nanofaceted Superconductivity: Chalmers University Stabilizes YBCO Films via Substrate Sculpting

High-temperature superconductors offer a tantalizing future of zero-resistance power grids, lossless electronic circuits, and ultra-stable qubits for quantum computers. However, bringing materials like Yttrium Barium Copper Oxide (YBCO) into practical applications has long been stymied by their sensitivity. When these materials are grown in ultrathin films, thermal fluctuations and strong magnetic fields easily disrupt the fragile quantum states that allow superconductivity, causing them to revert to ordinary, resistive metals. Now, physicists at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, led by Professor Floriana Lombardi, have resolved this issue using a novel technique: sculpting the atomic surface beneath the superconductor.

Rather than altering the chemical recipe of YBCO itself, Lombardi's team focused on the interface where the superconductor meets its substrate. The researchers took a crystal of magnesium oxide (MgO)—a standard substrate material—and treated it under high temperatures in a vacuum. This process caused the MgO surface to naturally self-assemble into an orderly, nanostructured pattern of microscopic ridges and valleys, known as nanofacets. These ridges are incredibly tiny, measuring less than one-millionth of the thickness of a human hair.

When the YBCO layer was deposited on top of this nanofaceted substrate, the YBCO atoms aligned precisely along the physical contours of the MgO hills and valleys. This interfacial engineering created a localized "electronic landscape" that dramatically boosted the material's superconductivity. The study, published in Nature Communications, reports that the YBCO films grown on nanofaceted substrates maintained their superconducting properties at higher temperatures and withstood significantly stronger magnetic fields than films grown on flat substrates. By showing that the electronic properties of a superconductor can be fundamentally enhanced through physical template engineering at the interface, the Chalmers team has opened a major new pathway for developing robust, energy-efficient quantum components and next-generation power systems.

📌 The Bottom Line

• in-vivo-crispr: Intellia's lonvo-z became the first systemic in vivo CRISPR therapy to succeed in a Phase 3 trial, reducing hereditary angioedema attacks by 87% after a single infusion.
• waste-to-sorbent: ETH Zurich researchers developed a biodegradable carbon-capture sorbent using whey and tofu protein waste that absorbs 97 mg of CO2 per gram, outperforming conventional DAC materials.
• substrate-sculpting: Chalmers University scientists boosted superconductivity in YBCO thin films by growing them on nanofaceted MgO substrates, making them resilient to high temperatures and magnetic fields.