A one-time treatment tweaked their genes — and lowered their cholesterol

Heart HealthA one-time treatment tweaked their genes — and lowered their cholesterolDoctors have never had so many cholesterol-lowering drugs at their disposal, but getting patients to take them every day is difficult. Gene-editing could open a new frontier.Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00Leila Register / NBC News; Getty ImagesShareAdd NBC News to GoogleApril 6, 2026, 7:03 AM EDTBy David CoxChristos Soteriou was 29 when he needed a quadruple bypass surgery. Four arteries in his heart had become so clogged with plaque that blood could no longer flow through them. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.It’s a surprisingly young age to need such a surgery, but extremely high levels of cholesterol run in Soteriou’s family — a genetic condition called familial hypercholesterolemia. His father died of heart disease at 46; his son was diagnosed with elevated cholesterol at 14; and Soteriou himself, now 51, has had two heart attacks since his operation. Christos Soteriou, left, with his son Jade. Soteriou has familial hypercholesterolemia, a genetic condition that causes extremely high cholesterol levels. Courtesy Jade SoteriouHe’s tried statins and a newer drug, Repatha, to lower his cholesterol, but nothing worked.So, when the opportunity came to join an early-stage clinical trial investigating a cutting-edge way to lower dangerously high cholesterol with a one-time treatment, he jumped at the chance. “I wasn’t too worried, because I’ll try anything at this point,” said Soteriou, from South Australia.The experimental treatment would use CRISPR, a gene-editing tool likened to biological scissors, to make precise cuts in the DNA to turn off a liver gene that prevents lipids — fatty substances including LDL cholesterol and triglycerides — from being cleared from the blood. By turning off the gene, called ANGPTL3, blood lipid levels should fall.Gene editing has emerged as a game-changing therapy...