“The Epigenetics Revolution and Junk DNA: A Journey Through the Dark Matter of the Genome”, author of popular science books such as Nessa Carey is a British biologist. Her area of work is molecular biology and biotechnology. Some of her own words on biology and biotechnology are being presented to the readers of Zoombangla today.
It is a pleasure for me to write something about gene editing. This method, which evolved over centuries in bacterial cells to resist virus attack, can also be used in the laboratory to edit the genes of any organism from any source.
CRISPR is actually an acronym or abbreviation, its full form is Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. Basically, this is the latest ‘Gene Editing Technology. As simple as the design or usage of the crisper is, its significance is also revolutionary.
The CRISPR technology will precisely find one wrong letter in a gene and a mutation, out of these three thousand million letters, and replace it. Just think, out of 3 billion gene characters, it will change only one special character in a special place – that’s the awesomeness of it! Such powerful, multidimensional technology has never before come into the hands of mankind.
The future of this technology as a treatment method is very promising. When we are editing genes in the DNA of human cells, changing the genetic characteristics – this change will be permanent. This is the principle behind the possibility of curing genetic diseases that I mentioned at the beginning. It should be noted that the application of different types of drugs only reduces the symptoms and external problems of the disease, but the disease is not completely cured; That’s what we’re doing now with Crisper.
Another concept of gene editing is ‘germline gene editing. Here gene editing technology is used on embryos. By observing the fetus’s genome, it is possible to determine which mutations are present in the fetus and which will later cause a fatal disease.
The enormous potential of modern gene editing technology cannot be neglected, nor can it be abandoned suddenly without establishing proper boundaries. Its application will be good or bad – it will depend on how conscious and humane way we will use it in the future. It is needless to say that mankind will greatly benefit if that work is done properly.