Literal Scissors? No! “CRISPR is an acronym for "Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats." Scary long, I know. It is a powerful tool that scientists quite literally use to edit genes. It works like a pair of molecular scissors that can cut and change the DNA inside a cell of a living organism.
For the sake of our sanity, I'll explain this as easily as possible. CRISPR is constructed of two main parts: the scissors, in this case, a Cas9 protein, and a guide RNA, which acts as a GPS and directs the Cas9 protein to the certain part of the DNA, that is to be altered. Okay, let's go step by step. Firstly, after selecting which part of the DNA they want to modify, scientists create a guide RNA, remember it is like a personal GPS, tailored to recognize the particular section of the DNA. Constructing a complex or compound, the guide RNA is bound to a Cas9 protein. This complex is then inserted into the target cell containing the specific DNA. After inserting the target cell the guide RNA leads the Cas9 protein to the exact location on the DNA, which directly cuts the DNA at that precise point. Subsequently, a cell's natural repair process is activated, enabling scientists to modify, delete or insert new building blocks of DNA, aka—genetic sequences. Basically, CRISPR is a cut-and-paste tool for editing DNA. So where's the use of it?
CRISPR has the potential to be incredibly useful, affecting many areas such as agriculture and medicine. CRISPR facilitates gene editing and is a lot cheaper, making it an effective method to create new and better crops, greatly and positively impacting the agriculture industry, as “out of norm” crops could be avoided and instead “perfect” ones could be improved, increasing the profit of harvesting and distribution. Whilst human gene editing is a controversial topic of ethical debate, especially as its long-term implications still have to be studied, it can save patients with life-threatening diseases. Application of human gene editing in clinical trials has treated and cured diseases such as cancer, blindness, sickle-cell disease and AIDS aka HIV. This could completely change medicine and extend our way of treating increasingly occurring diseases such as cancer and AIDs, as well as making treatment cheaper and more accessible. Therefore, CRISPR is a powerful technologic presenting vast and major advancements in the field of genetic engineering, which could continue saving lives with a simple scissor cut.
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