Human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells hold great promise for advancing our understanding of human biology and medicinal research. It has been shown that ectopic expression of just a few key transcription factors in somatic cells can induce an embryonic stem cell phenotype hallmarked by the ability to differentiate into any cell of the three basic germ layers (1,2).

CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats)-Cas (CRISPR-associated)  and Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nuclease (TALEN) are endonuclease based technologies aimed at developing targeted genome editing technologies.

CRISPR and TALEN provide Scientists with unique discovery tools for pathophysiology or genotype-phenotype studies by creating cellular models with gene knock-out, knock-in or tagging, promoter swapping, nucleotide substitution, protein truncation, reading frame disruption, modification of regulation by miRNA, genetic defect corrections…But, which one is the best for your application?