Summary Of The Film 'Gattaca'

CRISPR has been garnishing a lot of media attention recently and it is not just popular among the scientific community but also the general public. Several online news outlets and scientific journals have been talking about the significance CRISPR-Cas could have for the field of genetics and science as a whole. I even came across a Youtube video from The Verge, a tech channel that normally does reviews on new smartphones and laptops talking about CRISPR [15]. So why is CRISPR gaining so much attention both from the scientific community and the general public? The answer lies in the potential this technology possesses.

CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly-Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, so it’s simple to see why it was abbreviated. Whilst the topic of genetic modification with humans has been relatively untouched, and in many cases unheard of, in the general public, when we learnt about genetic modification, we learnt more about the way that it works rather than how far we can go with this new technology. What can we do with this, how much can we modify our own genes and to what extent can we do so?

An individual's aspirations arise and need commitment for them to become achieved. The movie Gattaca explains how a man named Vincent Freeman wants to travel outer space. This became difficult for him because the society criticizes his genetic makeup. His less than suitable heart condition makes the work field limit him to lower class jobs because they do not believe he is mentally skilled enough. People born of his type become labeled as "invalid." He decided to assume the identity of a former swimmer Jerome Morrow to achieve his lifetime goals. Like himself, the capability to imitate Jerome and see the world outside of Earth is interesting, even though that became challenging. While an individual's genetic make-up causes discrimination, the movie Gattaca illustrates ideas about human identity through Vincent's determination towards success and his will over scrutiny to achieve his dreams.

Although highly controversial, I find germline editing extremely interesting. Just the thought of removing a gene from an embryo is fascinating. In the article they used an enzyme called CRISPR/Cas9 as their scissors in order to cut out the faulty gene, which could’ve lead to heart failure. This genetic editing could potentially save thousands, perhaps millions of people from heart problems. When injected with the CRISPR/Cas9, a RNA strand to direct the cut, and an added piece of DNA to help repair the cell. During this process something interesting happened. The embryo rejected the added DNA and healed itself using the healthy copy of its mother’s DNA. This posed many questions for me. One of the major questions I had was, are designer babies possible? Can someone choose what features their child gets? By continuing my research into this topic I found out that although it would be extremely difficult there is a slight chance that designer babies are possible. Although this possibility is very small and would take

CRISPR or Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat, is used to change the DNA. Today, as humans, we have learned how to use CRISPR for what we want it to do. This is a major break in what we know about DNA. For the future we are looking at how we can change DNA and control what the DNA changes to.

The film GATTACA describes a world where the wrong genetic code leads to a life of little opportunities and genetic discrimination. In this world, parents can freely select and enhance a child’s genetic code, to make them smarter, faster, stronger. They can essentially “program” their child for a life of success, making them physically enhanced beings known as “valids”. However, genetic engineering in real life is not only risky but also limits genetic diversity, and there’s also the consequences of an elongated

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

Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats or CRISPR is an efficient and reliable ways to make precise, targeted changes to the genome of living cells. It is a naturally occurring defence mechanism of bacteria. The first part of the defense system is CRISPR and it just remembers parts of viruses DNA so it can recognize and defend against the virus. The second part of the defense mechanism is a set of enzymes called Cas9 or CRISPR associated proteins. Cas9 precisely cuts DNA. The CRISPR/Cas9 system was found in streptococcus pyogenes or better know as the bacteria that causes strep throat. All of this is just shortened to CRISPR. Basicly Cas9 cuts DNA and CRISPR tells it where to cut. All biologists have to do give the Cas9

CRISPR is an acronym for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat. This name refers to the unique organization of short, partially palindromic repeated DNA sequences found in the genomes of bacteria and other microorganisms. In 2014, rumors intensified about researchers in the US and China working on human embryos with the inexpensive, easy-to-use gene-editing tool CRISPR. In April 2015, a research team at Sun Yat-sen University in China published a report of an experiment in which they used CRISPR to edit a gene associated with the blood disease beta- thalassemia in non-viable human embryos (Center for Genetics and Society). While CRISPR is cheap and easy to use, many ethical questions surround it. Ethical questions surrounding CRISPR’s human applications are not limited to altering embryos. Gene-editing treatments could spur gene-editing enhancements to give people stronger muscles, quicker growth spurts or greater intelligence, affirms journalist David Wahlberg of the Wisconsin State Journal. Equally important is TALENs, which works similar to CRISPR. TALENs is considered being used in the future within the medical careers. Here’s how it might work in the future, explains the MIT Technology Review. First doctors would remove some of the patient’s own bone marrow cells. Then, these cells would be handed to scientists so they could be treated with TALENs in the lab. Scientists would make sure that the damaged gene is fixed and then hand the fixed cells back to the doctor so they could be put back into the

CRISPR is a relatively new, innovative, and simple way to edit DNA. This new process has the opportunity to change the world, but also the opportunity to hurt the world as well. CRISPR uses a piece of Guide RNA to get to the part of the DNA scientists want to edit. It then splits open the DNA with an enzyme named Cas9. Then the Guide RNA attaches to the now separated DNA, which then allows scientists to drop in any new piece of DNA they want. In the end, the DNA is now edited and changed.

CRISPR was first mentioned by Japanese researchers in 1987, who discovered strange repeated sequences located in between spacers

Much as Jurassic Park is based in soft sci-fi, so is Gattaca. Gattaca has a strong focus on the negative aspects of genetic modification. The story makes some serious assumptions about the impact of these changes, but first it should be looked at just how practical this is to society. The portrait of genetics in the movie is significantly more advanced than what is available today. Since the movie was released, the human genome has been mapped out, but there is a large gap between having the standard genetics of a human and being able to change a baby’s “purity” almost instantaneously.

The movie Gattaca is based in the distant future. The people are defined by their genetic information. In this movie, “natural” born children are classed as invalids, whereas people that are genetically created and modified are valid. The invalids are basically just as their name, invalid and must get a regular job, nothing spectacular. One of the main characters, Vincent Freeman, is the last child to be “naturally born”. After his birth, the doctors tell his parents that he has a life span of 30.2 years and there are so many genetic related things that are wrong with him. For all his childhood life, he is treated as if he is ill and sick all the time. Any little thing such as falling, or scraping his knee, is treated as if he is about to die. The couple then has another son, Anton. He is conceived by the new normal, genetic selection. He is now considered superior to Vincent. The father’s name is Anton and the second son takes his name because he is not genetically shortcoming. As a young boy Vincent has dreams of having a career working in space, but because of his invalid status, it will not be possible for him to get into the program. The brothers would often play a game called “chicken”. In this game, they would both swim out into the sea. Whoever turns around and starts to swim back first loses. One day while playing this game, Vincent actually wins. The one that is inferior actually wins. Anton begins to drown and Vincent must save him. After he wins the game, he

In 2012, CRISPR was realized to be a tool for easier and cheaper genetic alterations. In 2015, Chinese scientists created a altered human embryo, and later they

The story of this novel technique began in 1987 when Japanese researchers Nakata and his colleagues observed a series of 29nt DNA repeats interspaced by five 34nt sequences downstream of the iap enzyme gene in Escherichia coli (19). More and more such repetitive sequences were detected in bacteria and archaea strains over time. The constant findings have sparked research interest in these repetitive elements. In 2002, Mojica and Jansen abbreviated these clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats as CRISPR (20). In the same year, Jansen also reported that three distinct types of CRISPR-associated Cas genes were usually adjacent to repetitive DNA sequences (20); later, those three Cas genes were utilized to classify the CRISPR system (CRISPR type I-III). The major difference of three CRISPR system is that multiple complex Cas protein components constitute type I and III; in contrast, type II is only constructed by one single protein: Cas9 (Fig. 3) (21). Even though increasingly molecular structures of CRIPSR systems had been understood, their underlying biological mechanisms and functions were still a