A world without diseases would be music to the ears for every sick and healthy person alive. It seems impossible to achieve but the latest developments in genome editing give us a glimmer of hope. Especially the developments in CRISPR technology show that diseases such as HIV, AIDS and cancer could be prevented in the future.
Scientists have been searching for an easy way to correct changes that occur in the DNA of cancer patients. Over the past few years, different methods of genome editing have been developed. However, no technology was quick, cheap and easy enough to take genome editing to the next phase (NCI, 2020).
The game changed with the introduction of CRISPR. CRISPR technology has the ability to recognize, delete and repair muted DNA (Shwartz, 2018). The technology combines a protein called Cas9 with the engineered CRISPR sequences. This conjunction searches for codes and slices them into a molecular scalpel. The scalpel allows geneticists to remove and replace a target gene with a new sequence (Sciencealert, n.d.). Nowadays, CRISPR is becoming a mainstream methodology which makes its way out of the lab to enter the market with the goal to cure cancer patients (NCI, 2020).
Many scientists argue that most of the disorders in genes could be prevented by scanning embryos for harmful mutations. This would mean that children are born without abnormalities in their genes (Le Page, 2018). However, repairing human embryos to prevent diseases could be seen as controversial. One of the biggest concern is the removal of a wrong gene which could lead to an enormous effect on newborns (Shwartz, 2018). Furthermore, people fear the idea of giving children “superpowers”. On the other hand, scientists discuss that creating designer babies is not something that will happen soon (Shwartz, 2018).
The CRISPR technology offers a lot of benefits, such as the fact that is completely customizable, it is faster than older methods and it is easy to scale up. CRISPR is easy to use and most importantly, significantly cheaper than previous technologies (NCI, 2020).
However, CRISPR is not perfect and also has its limitations, namely it sometimes cuts not targeted DNA. These edits in healthy DNA could be vital and the cells could turn into cancer cells. Moreover, there is still a lot of uncertainty about the effect on the immune systems and how it will react to CRISPR (NCI, 2020).
Despite the limitations and controversies, the CRISPR technology remains a powerful tool for genome editing and the promises that it offers keep scientists focused on the future (Sciencealert, n.d.; Shwartz, 2018). A disease free world would maybe not be a strange idea in the foreseeable future.
Bibliography
Le Page, M. 2018. “Genetic disorders should be the focus of CRISPR gene editing trials”. New Scientist. [Online] Available at https://www.newscientist.com/article/0-genetic-disorders-should-be-the-focus-of-crispr-gene-editing-trials/ [Accessed 5 Oct. 2020].
NCI. 2020. “How CRISPR Is Changing Cancer Research and Treatment”. National Cancer Institute. [Online] Available at https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2020/crispr-cancer-researchtreatment#:~:text=CRISPR%20is%20a%20highly%20precise,changing%20cancer%20research%20and%20treatment.&text=Ever%20since%20scientists%20realized%20that,those%20changes%20by%20manipulating%20DNA [Accessed 5 Oct. 2020].
Sciencealert. N.d. What is CRISPR Gene Editing? [Online] Available at https://www.sciencealert.com/crispr-gene-editing [Accessed 5 Oct. 2020].
Shwartz, M. (2018). “Target, delete, repair”. Stanford Medicine. [Online] Available at https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2018winter/CRISPR-for-gene-editing-is-revolutionary-but-it-comes-with-risks.html [Accessed 5 Oct. 2020].