Benjamin P. Kleinstiver

Benjamin P. Kleinstiver's indexed work centers on engineering CRISPR-Cas9 and Cas12a nucleases with improved specificity and expanded targeting range. His early first-author contributions include high-fidelity Cas9 variants with no detectable genome-wide off-target effects and engineered Cas9 nucleases with altered PAM specificities, the latter helping relax the targeting constraints imposed by native protospacer adjacent motifs. Later senior-author work extended this program toward near-PAMless Cas9 variants for unconstrained genome targeting, alongside engineered Cas12a variants with increased activity and broader targeting ranges for gene, epigenetic and base editing. Beyond these, Kleinstiver contributed to predicting off-target activities for end-to-end CRISPR guide RNA design and to a patient-specific in vivo gene editing treatment for a rare genetic disease, reflecting a translational thread running through the portfolio. His more recent senior-author outputs pursue new editing modalities, including