The gene editing tool CRISPR has seen a lot of modifications lately; some as a result of some creative minds in Hollywood and others from the scientific genius of scientists at UCLA. Kruglyak from UCLA. (Image via UCLA)
The Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, also known as CRISPR, is a medical tool designed to help cure the diseases that are caused by the presence or absence or mutation of genes. CRISPR was revolutionary because it would allow scientists to diagnose some diseases as well as precisely removing bothersome genes. So, at first, many people in the scientific world felt that it could cure all diseases. It was even the center of a recent movie starring Dwayne Johnson and Naomie Harris. However, CRISPR doesn’t do all that the movie pretended. Though, it was updated recently.
Released this month of April 2018, RAMPAGE, is a movie that tells the story of how a pair of “evil” siblings used CRISPR to create a genetic weapon that could turn any animal into a more aggressive, faster and stronger with new abilities version of itself. Even though the movie stays true to what CRISPR does, it enhanced some of CRISPR’s abilities. The truth is that scientists have not reached the point of CRISPR development where it could introduce new genes from one species to another species. In fact, CRISPR is solely for editing genes and could only edit one gene at a time, until this year. According to the chair of human genetics at the school of medicine of the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), before 2018, CRISPR could isolate many genes at once but could not edit them simultaneously. Now, thanks to his team of researchers, the issue was resolved.
It appears that with this improvement, CRISPR will permit scientists to easily find the modifications in genes susceptible to cause disease. Therefore, CRISPR might really be able to cure all diseases even in animals. While watching RAMPAGE, however, one would wonder whether the new CRISPR could eventually patch genes from multiple unrelated species. Especially, when Dr. Meru Sadhu, a researcher at the Kruglyak lab, says that all it takes to introduce new modifications into a genome is matching the right patches together. Although he also says that task will be tedious, it doesn’t rule out the possibility of a scenario like the one in the movie. Is it possible that one day CRISPR will serve in new breeds of animals?
Before worrying about that, the research team wanted to test their new technique. They decided to apply it to some yeast cultures: some affected by harmful genes. They chose yeast due to its ability to adapt fast to genetic modifications, giving the researchers an opportunity to observe in real time the fruits of their manipulations. Researchers noticed that the new CRISPR quickly revealed the good cells from the “sick” ones. Also, ten thousand modifications occurred at the same time on cultures of millions of yeasts, which was a lot more than CRISPR could handle before the new technique.
The experience also revealed that some parts of a genome were not as important as they used to think. Furthermore, the chains of amino acids composing some proteins are not all necessary for the survival of the cells. So, when they removed the parts they were disposable, the cells survived. From the results of the experiment, Kruglyak felt confident that scientists can now use CRISPR to alter genomes in thousands of ways, which brings back the concern of CRISPR being used as a weapon as suggested in RAMPAGE.
Luckily, contrary to that scenario, there are many agencies supervising the evolution and use of CRISPR. First, since CRISPR is a medical device, its use is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health. Next, comes the supervision of the Environmental Protection Agency. Other controlling entities include the Departments of Agriculture and Defense. And, in case they all fail to catch the threat, and a company builds a lab in space, one would trust that at least NASA will catch it. Therefore, there is no worry about the story of the movie becoming a reality.
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