Jacob Corn

Genome editing, functional genomics, and cells figuring out how to eat themselves without dying. Professor of Genome Biology at ETH Zürich.

[Jacob Corn @jcornlab]

Do you work in #cancer and feel behind-the-curve in #CRISPR state of the art? Get up to speed fast with this review! Huge kudos to Joshua Casan, Samuel Grigg, and Carolyn Shembrey for heavy lifting to pull this together. https://t.co/vcVwn3CMlh

[Jacob Corn @jcornlab]

Do you need a super active #CRISPR Cas for in vivo editing? I have not one, but two options for you. Activities rival SpyCas9, but they fit into an scAAV. Check out our latest paper, co-led by Fedor Gorbenko and Irene Sala. Just out in Genome Research. https://t.co/xKgzgKVQzZ

[Jacob Corn @jcornlab]

I'm very excited to be part of the new #NCCR Children & Cancer. This amazing group spans all of #Switzerland to unite researchers & clinical practitioners to tackle deadly childhood cancers. Website is live today - stay tuned for #hiring & research updates https://t.co/eA0h14FOo3

[Jacob Corn @jcornlab]

The preliminary program and registration is open for SwissPR 2026, happening in Basel at the Biozentrum on 30th June. Hear from @jpkbravo, @schmidburgk, @grunewaju, @MartinPacesa more. Register now at https://t.co/znGZ2c4L3e

[Jacob Corn @jcornlab]

Can't wait to read this!

[Ben Adler @ben_a_adler]

Saying it because @kenjmloi didn't:
This is really close to a RNA system that targets protein sequences because of wobble bases in codons.

Truly amazing discovery!

[Jacob Corn @jcornlab]

Cells need to repair genome editing induced damage, no matter how it’s made! This was a wonderful collaboration with @AllogeneTx.

[Zacharias Kontarakis @xecoli]

Our paper is out in Molecular Therapy – Nucleic Acids.
We present #DisTALseq, a genome-wide method to profile TALEN #offtargets by tracking DNA repair factor recruitment at DSBs.
Thank you all for this great collaboration #AllogeneTx #CornLab #GEML
https://t.co/34ECeGzmxt

[Jacob Corn @jcornlab]

We saw the same SP100-dependent toxicity in cells from VODI patients who lack SP110. Regulated condensate disassembly may be a general requirement for maintaining cellular health!

[Jacob Corn @jcornlab]

Proper organelle regulation during mitosis is a must, but how do membrane-less condensates like PML bodies behave during cell division? In work led by @eric_aird, we found the balance of speckled proteins SP110 & SP100 to be the key. https://t.co/MkNBfYPxcJ

[Jacob Corn @jcornlab]

This phenomenon is relevant to any situation where the balance of SP110 versus SP100 expression is perturbed. Not just via interferon upregulation. SUMOylation is also a key regulator of toxicity.

[Jacob Corn @jcornlab]

@ketanpatelimmo1 @karasuerman1 Excellent question. Maybe increased demand for NHEJ in HSCs plus more frequent overhanging ends vs blunt? No clear source of increased overhangs in HSCs so far as I know. My lab is more and more getting into tissue-specific etiologies of mutations in core repair factors.

[Jacob Corn @jcornlab]

Many genome-editing tools work by cutting DNA - but the shape of the cut matters. Using #CRISPR screening, we show ERCC6L2 is specifically required to maintain #DNArepair fidelity at staggered DNA breaks, but not at blunt ends.
https://t.co/MbW8DTjIre

[Jacob Corn @jcornlab]

@eric_aird @almuseben @SMSiegner @SPJacksonGroup @CejkaLab ERCC6L2 acts as a guardian during repair of staggered DSBs. This sheds light on ERCC6L2 mutations linked with BMF and leukemia and highlights caution for genome-editing approaches that generate DNA overhangs.

[Jacob Corn @jcornlab]

@eric_aird @almuseben @SMSiegner @SPJacksonGroup @CejkaLab What does ERCC6L2 actually do? It counteracts the activity of the MRN complex (MRE11–RAD50–NBS1), limiting excessive DNA end resection and promoting accurate end joining.

[Jacob Corn @jcornlab]

It’s been a fun first few week of my sabbatical. Many exciting meetings w/ @PeterFineran lab, learning new stuff and brainstorming ideas. And my own lab has been off to a crazy great start to the year. The early/late zoom meetings have me burning the candle at both ends…

[Oana Pelea @OanaPelea]

Happy to share that my postdoctoral work is now out in @ScienceMagazine. We show that the RNA-programmable bridge recombinase ISCro4 can insert, delete, or invert multi-kilobase DNA fragments at defined genomic sites in human cells.
Study link: https://t.co/CFBOiQvhAf

CRISPR-Cas has transformed genome editing, but many diseases involve diverse patient-specific mutations within the same gene. A mutation-agnostic alternative is to insert a healthy gene copy at a defined genomic locus, but gene-sized, site-specific insertions remain a major challenge.

Main findings of our work:
(1) ISCro4 is highly active in human cells and can be delivered by plasmid or all-RNA formats
(2) Proof-of-concept programmable multi-kb insertions, deletions, and inversions
(3) Structural insights into the basis of enhanced ISCro4 activity
(4) Specificity and off-target characterisation
(5) A framework to support future development and adoption of bridge recombinases

The work was made possible through a close collaboration between the Jinek Lab, @schwanklab, and @jcornlab. I am deeply grateful to all of my co-authors for the team spirit, hard work, and dedication that went into this publication: @talasandris, Javier Fernández Carrera, @nicopmat, Lilly van de Venn, Charles Yeh, @p_kulcsar, @marquark, @YanikWeber, @SaskiaGerecke, Isabelle Harvey-Seutcheu, Dominic Mailänder, @MorPfl, and @ChrisChanez89. Special thanks to my supervisor, Prof. Martin Jinek, for his outstanding mentorship, and to Prof. Gerald Schwank and Prof. Jacob Corn for their generous support throughout. Finally, I would like to thank everyone in the Jinek lab for creating a supportive work environment, and @EMBO for funding my postdoctoral work.

In parallel, independent work led by @ntperry13, @SKonermann and @pdhsu also reported ISCro4 activity in human cells, reinforcing the robustness and momentum of this direction.

Please reach out if you would like to test the system or discuss potential applications. Relevant plasmids are now available via @Addgene.

[Jacob Corn @jcornlab]

This looks incredible! Cell systems can still be a bottleneck, but are cloning woes now a thing of the past?

[Thomas Norman @thenormanlab]

New preprint on technologies to scale up CRISPR screens.

We use them to map 665,856 pairwise genetic perturbations and outline a path to comprehensive interaction mapping in human cells.

We also introduce an approach for cloning lentiviral libraries with billions of elements.