Can DNA editing cure our Life-Long Diseases? Ohh Yes !!!
Perhaps the greatest discovery of this century in the field of life sciences and medicine is the DNA editing tech, i.e. CRISPR-Cas 9 technology.
What is this tech all about?
Nature has developed bacteria and archaea with DNA sequences that also contain leftover DNA stretches from various other viruses and phages. This leftover junk present in the middle of their genomic material is used to identify and destroy similar viruses during future attacks. This inbuilt mechanism inside of these organisms has recently been used to exploit to give rise to the DNA editing (CRISPR-Cas 9) technology.
How does DNA editing (CRISPR-Cas 9) work?
Basically, this DNA editing serves the purpose of the adaptive immune system thereby shielding the bacteria from any future virus attacks. The leftover sequences from the previous virus enable them to act as a guide by the Cas enzyme in order to identify and destroy the virus. A guide RNA and Cas9 enzyme are able to edit or repair the genome with near precision and relative simplicity which was not heard of before.
CRISPR-Cas9 system allows us to insert, remove genes and repair disease triggering mutations.
This breakthrough has changed the medicinal research field and has created a ripple across the other research fields as well.
How far do we still have to go?
Still, in its early stages, there are still a lot of developments and researches that have to be carried out. However, it has been adopted on adult animals. Scientists and researchers have been using this system to gain in-depth knowledge regarding the mechanisms underlying various life-threatening diseases.
Duke University has been able to utilize this system to turn off a gene that controls cholesterol, thereby regulating cholesterol levels in mice.
There have also been modified versions of this system that in turn helps in the modification of disease-related genes, in order to treat certain diseases. This has been utilized in the animal model, especially the mice.
Scientists from the UK have recently been given permission to alter the genome of human embryos within the first seven days post fertilization using the CRISPR-Cas9 system. The permission was granted by the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA). This way, they believe that they will be able to determine the causes of miscarriage in most women, and also will identify and understand which genes are responsible for the development of the embryo at this stage so that, they can radically increase IVF success rates in future.
Potential dark sides of this tech
Though it may seem that the DNA editing (CRISPR-Cas9) system is relatively safe and may not result in unaccounted genetic mutations, there ought to be more researches to be carried out before implementing this technology in altering humans genomes. Also, as seen above, this tech has been used for knocking off or silencing certain genes, but it has not been proven to be efficient in the case of human cells.
There have to be studies carried out in order to ensure that this system is safe, reliable, practical and efficient in the long term.
However, scientists view this tech as a groundbreaking one, which may help to treat neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s and may even help treat other big disease conditions in the near future.