David Liu Treats Genetic Disorders with DNA Editing
By James Moreau | 14 Aug, 2025

Revolutionary gene-editing techniques developed by David Liu allows treatment of diseases arising from genetic defects.

David Liu has advanced gene-editing technology with groundbreaking work in base editing and prime editing.  He has developed highly precise tools to correct the DNA “misspellings” that cause diseases.

Developed in 2016 by Liu’s team at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, base editing acts as a “chemical surgeon” correcting single-letter DNA mutations which make up a third of all known genetic diseases.  Base editing has been used to correct sickle-cell disease and has shown promising results in clinical trials for treating T-cell leukemia.  In 2022 a 13-year-old with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia became the first patient to receive base-edited cell therapy, achieving cancer remission within 28 days.

Prime editing which acts as a “search and replace” was introduced by Liu’s lab in 2019.  The technique allows insertion or deletion of small stretches of DNA, enabling correction of a wider range of genetic mutations than base editing.

These technologies have been translated into clinical applications through companies Liu co-founded, including Beam Therapeutics, Prime Medicine, and Editas Medicine.

The development of base and prime editing treatments has earned Liu numerous awards.  Most recently he won the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences which came with a $3 million check.

Liu is an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a professor at the Broad Institute and Harvard University where he began teaching at the age of 26.

Liu graduated Valedictorian from Harvard with a bachelor of arts in chemistry in 1994 and earned a doctorate of organic chemistry from Berkeley in 1999.

The 52-year-old was born and raised in Riverside, California by parents who emigrated from Taiwan. Liu’s father is an aerospace engineer and his mother is a retired physics professor at UC Riverside. In his youth, Liu was the lead tester of the video game Way of the Warrior and was a professional Street Fighter II player.  At age 21 he was banned from some casinos for using his math skills to win at blackjack.