Above: What Is CRISPR & How Could It Edit Your DNA? The Gene Machine & What The CRISPR Experiments Mean For Humanity.
Gene editing tool CRISPR is everywhere in the news, but what is CRISPR and could it eliminate human diseases?
CRISPR: A Game Changing Genetic Engineering Technique
Have you heard? A revolution has seized the scientific community. Within only a few years, research labs worldwide have adopted a new technology that facilitates making specific changes in the DNA of humans, other animals, and plants.
A new technique that lets scientists edit DNA with ease is transforming science, and raising difficult questions. The DNA editing technique, known as CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats), could revolutionize human gene therapy and genetic engineering because it allows scientists for the first time to make the finest changes to the DNA of human chromosomes with relative ease.
Above: What Is CRISPR & How Could It Edit Your DNA? The Gene Machine & What The CRISPR Experiments Mean For Humanity.
How CRISPR Edits DNA
Every cell in the body carries a copy of genetic code, a blueprint of who we are as humans. CRISPR allows scientists to edit that genetic code with more control than ever before in human history. First, the CRISPR molecule is programmed to search for specific sequences, like mutated ones that cause disease, among the 3 billion letters in the human DNA code. Once the mutation is found, CRISPR unzips the twisted DNA strands and cuts the targeted DNA sequence with its molecular scissors. The body can then repair itself on its own or scientists can patch in a corrected sequence. If done inside an egg, sperm, or embryonic cell, the changes will be passed on to future generations. Thus, with CRISPR, changes can be made more precisely and easily to practically any living thing.