Out of the references used to create the CRISPR/Cas9 and RNAi lecture is there one that provides some more background of what was covered in the lecture?

For a quick overview of the CRISPR/Cas9 material, I’d recommend this blog from Addgene’s site https://www.addgene.org/crispr/history/.

For more in-depth but still student-level material, I’ll point you to Addgene’s CRISPR 101 ebook (https://info.addgene.org/download-addgenes-ebook-crispr-101-2nd-edition?_ga=2.177460133.1891195486.1543870136-1215691576.1538401678).

For advanced level questions, head to PubMed and search for CRISPR in your model system of choice or come to ask me for help with specific search parameters.

For RNAi, I used information from the references cited on the slides and several sites to book up on the topic. The websites are linked below:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/probe/docs/techrnai/

https://www.nature.com/nrg/multimedia/rnai/animation/index.html

https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/life-science/rnai/rna-interference-overview.html

Has CRISPR/Cas9 been considered for correcting cancer mutations as a treatment for cancer?

Totally! In humans though, CRISPR/Cas9 therapeutics are a long way off because they are effectively gene therapy and the regulatory environment is (wisely) very cautious about making permanent changes to human cells. Currently, the CRISPR/Cas9-related cancer therapies that are under development leverage cancer immunotherapy. Essentially, this technology is used to manipulate genes in T-cells to generate immune cells that are specifically targeted to the cancer cells. T-cells are clonally generated and the off-target effects of CRISPR/Cas9 can be carefully assessed in the lab before the engineered cells are injected back into the host.