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The CRISPR Technique By Odessa

By Anonymous
Designer babies, perfect genetics, no genetic diseases, doesn’t this sound like some utopian turned dystopian novel. Can you imagine being designed by scientists? But CRISPR could transform the way we face genetic diseases. This lifesaving technique was developed at UC Berkeley in 2012 just 45 minutes from Mill Valley by Jennifer Doudna. Doudna is a professor of chemistry and of molecular and cell biology at Berkeley
“CRISPER?” you’re probably thinking. Well, I’ll break it down for you. CRISPR which is Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats is a technique that edits DNA inexpensively, efficiently and accurately. DNA or Deoxyribonucleic is a nucleic acid that carries your genetic information. It is found in the nucleus of nearly all cells.
CRISPR uses an enzyme called Cas9, the bacteria edits the main genes of viruses and then stores them. The immune system then sees the virus and battles it off. CRISPR does this and can also reinstate another gene and then stitch the DNA together again. The process takes an entirety of three days and costs at a minimum of $30. This breakthrough could shift our world forward a great deal. Genetic diseases like Huntington’s Disease, Down’s Syndrome, Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, Sickle Cell Anemia, Celiac Disease  etc. could be banquished, because once it is changed in one person and that would forever alter that hereditary line.

This is not so easy as it sounds. In China they attempted this on embryos to destroy a blood disorder and there were new and accidental effects. Four out of 86 embryos worked properly. There is so much we don’t know about CRISPR and the effects it can have on us. Scientists are also extremely hesitant to mess with DNA, because there is a foggy line between curing genetic diseases and changing traits to more advantageous ones. Still this is a huge achievement in the world of genetics with endless possibilities. I’m excited to see what are future has in store.
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