Base editors dissect genetic variants in human hematopoietic cells on a large scale.

In a recent study, Martin-Rufino and colleagues combined massively parallel base editing in primary human hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) with functional and single-cell transcriptomic readouts. A series of proof-of-principle experiments highlight the breadth of applications made possible with this approach, which range from gene therapy and immunotherapy, to characterizing single nucleotide variants.