It may sound like science fiction, scientists now have an efficient incredibly accurate way to edit the genes of any living creature including humans. This technology is called Crisper and it is going to change both the way research is done and the way genetic diseases are treated. But what exactly is it? Crisper stands for ‘Cluster Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat’ which is quite the mouthful but simply put it describes short sections of repeating DNA that occur within bacteria and some microorganisms and the sequences are vital to that organism’s immune system. See if a virus is invades a bacterial cell that viruses genome or complete set of DNA contains the information to keep replicating and if the bacterium wants to survive that replication needs to stop and therefore its immune system means to destroy the viral genome. But how is that done?
Well between each repeating section of DNA there are short sequences of DNA called spacers and these form that can be thought of as a viral most wanted list since they are the bacterium’s way of remembering which viruses have attacked it. So when a virus invades a cell, if there is an associated space are already there meaning it is on the most wanted list, the bacterium can go on to destroy the virus but if the virus is new, DNA from it must first be inserted into the crisper sequence as a new spacer and after this happens the battle is ready to begin.
Once the virus has been identified te DNA in the spacer is copied into a RNA molecule and then the real magic begins when the cast enzymes or crisper associated proteins take over. These are essentially the bacteria’s tiny warriors and the most famous of which is called cast nine. These take up the RNA and move them round the cel until they encounter the virus that matches. The cast enzymes then cut the viral DNA into preventng it from replicating and therefore protecting the bacterium.
So thst is all well and good for bacteria but how does it relate to other living creatures? Well if the scientist wants to destroy or edit part of the DNA sequence, all they have to do is design some RNA called Guide RNA, wrap it up in some cast nine and inject it into the cell. This can be used to replace a faulty gene by cutting it out and puting a healthy version in the place or it can be used to silence a gene as the DNA fails to attempt to repair itself completely or it could be used to add a completely different gene entirely.
Now at this point, you can probably see the huge potential here. Scientists can begin to better understand genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis by isolating individual gene and seeing their effects and already scientists have used this simple technique to create mosquitoes that are resistant to malaria, help treat HIV and blindness and even modify human embryos. Using this technique you maybe one day able to create your designer baby.
Transcripted By Benazir Elahee Munni