US Patent Issued to Precision BioSciences on Sept. 9 for "Optimized engineered meganucleases having specificity for a recognition sequence in the Hepatitis B virus genome" (North Carolina Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 10 -- United States Patent no. 12,410,418, issued on Sept. 9, was assigned to Precision BioSciences Inc. (Durham, N.C.).

"Optimized engineered meganucleases having specificity for a recognition sequence in the Hepatitis B virus genome" was invented by Janel Lape (Wake Forest, N.C.) and James Jefferson Smith (Morrisville, N.C.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present invention encompasses engineered nucleases which recognize and cleave a recognition sequence within a Hepatitis B virus (HBV) genome. The engineered meganucleases can exhibit at least one optimized characteristic, such as enhanced specificity and/or efficiency of indel formation, when compared to previousl...