Science and Technology
Could We Really Bring Back Extinct Animals?
What you should know about gene-editing, its uses, and its future.
This may sound like something out of a science fiction novel, but scientists are working on bringing back animals who have gone extinct.
They also plan on making milk, eggs, and peanuts safe to eat for those allergic, and curing inherited diseases such as Cystic Fibrosis and Sickle Cell Anemia.
But how is this possible?
The answer is gene-editing: specifically a technology called CRISPR-Cas9.
CRISPR-Cas9 stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats and CRISPR-associated protein 9, so you can see we use the acronym. It has revolutionized the way our society is progressing, making advancements that were once impossible, possible.
But how exactly does it work, what is it used for, and how will it shape our future?
The Discovery and Development of CRISPR-Cas9
In 2012, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier pioneered today’s sharpest gene-editing tool: CRISPR-Cas9. With this technology, scientists have the ability to modify the DNA of animals, plants, and microorganisms…
