Cloning, changing your own eye color, or making yourself taller have all been dreams out posted in the minds of dystopian writers for decades upon decades. Mostly every dystopian novel has played around with the idea of genetic engineering and genetic modification, and to readers all this was, was a fun plot in an interesting story. In 1973, the first mention of genetic engineering was made by American biochemists Stanley N. Cohen and Herbert W. Boyer, who cut DNA into fragments, rejoined different fragments, and inserted the new genes into E. coli bacteria, which then reproduced. This discovery began the long, winding road of genetic modification, and pretty soon GMO foods or Genetically Modified Organisms became commonplace. Due to the ongoing state that our world has been in for over two years, we have been forced to progress rather quickly in both science and healthcare to accommodate the wide-spread sickness and to provide a reliable vaccine that protects people from the virus. Alongside these achievements, came the CRISPR-Cas9, the future of genetic engineering.
Genetic engineering, in simplistic terms, is the ability to change an organism’s DNA, and this genetic material can be added, removed, or altered at particular locations in the genome. CRISPR-Cas9 is short for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats and CRISPR-associated protein 9. The function of the CRISPR-Cas9 system is fascinating: the genome editor was created via a naturally occurring genetic editing bacteria, and this bacteria captures snippets of DNA from invading viruses and uses them to create DNA segments known as CRISPR arrays. The CRISPR arrays allow the bacteria to “remember” the viruses (or closely related ones). RNA segments from the arrays will then disable the virus as it uses the enzymes in the protein to cut the DNA apart. Scientists in the lab have recreated instances like this by creating a small piece of RNA that the CRISPR-Cas9 protein can identify and remember and cut. They then test this numerous times to ensure similar results based off of each trial.
With all of the good that comes with genetic editing, such as combating diseases or short stopping genetic impediments, the morality and ethicalness of genetic editing is still a large enough force to deter people from the pros and cons of genetic modification. Considering that this is a fairly new science discovery, it is reasonable that all different kinds of people would have different comfort points in regards to the conventionality of genetic modification. Either way, scientists are still making strides in the field of genetics each and every day, and as the FDA watches over trials for CRISPR-Cas9, there could be a possibility of incorporating it into our daily lives one day.