Importance Of CRISPR Cas-9

According to Nature.com, Crispr has been the largest leap in science since 1985, when the previous gene editing software was invented. This software, called PCR took tens of thousands of dollars and several years just to modify a single gene. Crispr, however, can do the same thing in less than a month for as little as thirty dollars per gene. What twenty years ago took a team of highly qualified researchers can now be done by anyone with a high school education. This could also be viewed as a bad thing, should crispr be released to the public, it would put unlimited power into the hands of nearly anyone in the world. Another possibility would be a rise in bioterrorism. Imagine a terrorist organization getting its hands on the power to shape a virus or bacterium however they pleased. While there are safer, albeit less effective ways to fix a genetic disorder, most scientists agree that it would be a waste to "toss crispr in the trash" simply because of its scary

CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat, referring to the repeating DNA sequences found in the genomes of microorganisms. CRISPR technology allows scientists to make precise changes in genes by splicing and replacing these DNA sequences with new ones. Through these changes, the biology of the cell is altered and possibly affects the health of an organism. The possibilities are endless as this offers opportunities in curing deadly diseases, modifying genes, and changing humanity as we know it. Although bioengineering has been around since the 1960s, CRISPR is significant because of the comparative low costs and the ease of the procedure to

CRISPR is a technology that allows DNA sequence to be altered in a precised manner in order to avoid genetic mutations that may lead to different diseases. It works by the action of the protein called Cas9 that acts as a molecular scalpel. Cas9 has the ability to detect which parts of the DNA are defective. After it determines where that part is, it attaches itself to it and after a series of chemical reactions, it cuts it right at the spot of the malfunctioned DNA. Sometimes, a new DNA can be attached to it so that the cell can work properly again.

In the future, medical professionals hope to be able to treat or even eradicate a disorder by inserting a new gene into the cell via drug or surgery that will combat or even fix the mutation in the DNA that causes that disease. This therapy is still in the very early stages of experiments, and the ethical questions surrounding it prevents much progress from being made at all. There are many potential health complications surrounding this type of approach: scientists still do not completely understand how genes work and if they can be replaced. CRISPR will be a major tool used in gene therapy. CRISPR, which stands for , is a unique technology that lets geneticist and medical researches edit part of the genome by pinpointing a certain area of DNA and adding DNA, removing DNA, or altering the DNA sequence (Your

Knowing how CRISPR works we can go from here. In the future we can use CRISPR for treating disease or editing the genes of human embryos. The main focus for the future, though on CRISPR is the ability

The authors incorporated a surplus of information and research that has been previously used with this technique. What seemed to be very interesting was the complexity of how this technique could not only combat specific cancer genes, but also other mutated genes that caused genetic illnesses and even eye diseases. The article contained some information on how CRISPR assisted with editing the defected gene in the eye cells that causes blindness. I thought this was incredible, because prior to reading this article, I was only aware of the implications that CRISPR had on cancer cells. It would be interesting to see if the CRISPR technique could work in tandem with other common techniques (chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery) to combat all forms of cancer. This is a far stretch; however, researchers have made it thus far to combat the genetically influenced forms of cancer, such as breast, and thyroid cancer, so they could eventually develop techniques to cure all forms in the far future. What is also something of importance is the cost of having these techniques done on individuals. Because CRISPR is a new technique that is breaking through, it has not yet spread to the general population as treatment options. When it does begin to gain its popularity, the cost of it would probably far more expensive than

CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, which are the trademark of a bacterial defense system that forms the basis for CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing technology. If you have already heard of CRISPR-Cas9 technology, great. If not, I’ll explain it. CRISPR-Cas9 is a unique technology that enables geneticists and medical researchers to edit parts of the genome removing, adding or altering sections of the DNA sequence. This allows scientists to take away an illness or disease from someone’s DNA. CRISPR-Cas9 technology has been a polarizing topic due to ethical reasons. Some people believe that CRISPR is great technology that could and should be used for health reasons and even cosmetic reasons. This would mean

The Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) and CRISPR Associated System (CAS) is an advancement in technology that transformed a previous protein-based targeting (TALEN and Zinc Finger) process used to target and splice genes or DNA sequences. CRISPR-Cas9 was discovered in 2013 by Feng Zhang from the Broad Institute and MIT. CRISPR-Cas9 targets specific base pairs using small RNA that can be easily swapped for many different RNA targeting sites. This allowed CRISPR-Cas9 to surpass the previously used splicing methods such as, Transcription Activator-Like Effector (TALE) and zinc fingers. TALEs and zinc fingers are banded to DNA through a direct protein-DNA interaction. This was a long and tedious process that required proteins to be redesigned for each new target DNA site. CRISPR-Cas9 made the process of genome editing more efficient, effective, and precise by using RNA and proteins (“CRISPR”). CRISPR-Cas9 is a natural system that helps bacteria defend against attacking viruses known as bacteriophages. This process begins with the “CRISPR sequences [bookending] short stretches of DNA that bacteria have copied from invading phages, preserving a memory of the viruses that have attacked them in the past” (“CRISPR”). These sequences are then transcribed into short RNAs that guide the Cas proteins to match the viral sequences. The Cas proteins destroy the matching viral DNA by cutting it from the strand.

infection by viruses. When a bacterium identifies a threat from a virus, it generates two types of

First discovered in 1987, the CRISPR-Cas system is a prokaryotic adaptive immunity defense system that confers resistance against invading nucleic acids, either viral or plasmid. In other words, if an intracellular parasite (such as a phage or a plasmid) invades the bacterial or achaeal host cell, the host cell is capable of storing short fragments of the foreign nucleic acid originating from the parasite within its own genome (Wiedenheft et al. 2012). The Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) and the CRISPR associated (Cas) genes are found in approximately 40% of bacterial genomes and in nearly 90% of sequenced archaeal genomes (Zhang and al. 2014).

Even though CRISPR/Cas9 was just discovered around 4 years ago, the CRISPR/Cas system itself was first observed in bacteria (E.coli). It was what CRISPR was doing in the bacteria that makes it so unique. CRISPR stands for, “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats”. This means that there are going to be short sequences of DNA bases that will read the same forward and backwards. In-between these short sequences will be spacer DNA. Unlike the palindromic sequences, the spacer DNA will have sequences

Surrounded by patent and ethical issues lies a gene editing method with massive potential within the biotechnology industry. The CRISPR-Cas9 system works like ‘molecular scissors’ where Cas9 is an endonuclease that targets a specific DNA sequence (Griggs. 2015). This is more efficient than the previous methods such as zinc-finger nucleases (ZFNs) and transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs), as well as being simpler to use. CRISPR-Cas9 uses single guided RNA (sgRNA) to reach the desired gene, where it is able to cleave the double stranded DNA in the presence of a Protospacer Adjacent Motif sequence (PAM sequence) (Ran et al. 2013). This is the stage where the gene can be altered via the cells own repair system due to the break in the DNA (Nehme et al. 2014). Solutions to sickle-cell anaemia, malaria and beta thalassemia are just a few of the life changing impacts this method could have in the future.

Since the implications of CRISPR/Cas9 technologies were discovered, research has mostly gone in two different directions. Bioengineers and pathologists are starting to experiment with using CRISPR as treatments to hereditary diseases with the hope that someday, they could cure certain genetic diseases. Another application currently being experimented with is using CRISPR to genetically modify organisms for various purposes.

Within the CRISPR system, tremendous growth has occurred in regards to our abilities in exploring the pathogenesis of diseases and correcting the mutations that cause them.This genome editing technology gives researchers the ability to knockout or eliminate genes, repress gene expression, and up-regulate genes to increase expression.

CRISPR/Cas9, a system of molecules used to change the DNA in adult human cells and animal embryos, is used to eradicate devastating genetic diseases in humans before birth. CRISPR identifies the target DNA, which shows Cas9 the correct strands to slice (“CRISPR Treats Genetic Disorder”, 2016). This process has