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Genetic Disorders ( Genetic Disease Foundation ) Essay

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There are around 6,000 known genetic disorders (Genetic Disease Foundation). The symptoms of these disorders range from memory loss to blindness, physical abnormalities and more. A process known as gene editing was created in an attempt to do away with genetic disorders. Gene editing was named “Science Magazine 's Breakthrough of the Year 2015” due to its ease and high accessibility (ScienceDirect). It works by using CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) and Cas9 to make changes in the genes of cells. Francisco Mojica discovered CRISPR in 1993 at the University of Alicante in Spain (Broad Institute). It works by adding, changing or even removing DNA bases (Your Genome). Alexander Bolotin discovered Cas9 in 2005 at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (Broad Institute). Cas9 is an enzyme that “acts as a pair of ‘molecular scissors’ that can cut two strands of DNA at a specific location in the genome so that bits of DNA can then be added or removed” (YourGenome). “The CRISPR-Cas9 system has been used to correct genetic mutations and for replacing entire genes, opening up a world of possibilities for the treatment of genetic diseases” (ScienceDirect). This makes CRISPR-Cas9 a new and revolutionary technology with a wide range of potential applications, and almost everybody will be affected by gene editing in one way or another. The scientists currently working on making human gene editing a reality, is only one group of

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