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This week scientists in America reached a breakthrough that could revolutionize medical science, and not only because it has been described by one of the Nobel scientists as “absolutely huge” and “jaw-dropping”.
Keep your jaws on the floor, because the discovery means we awesome humans can now alter our own genomes. And by that, we mean we can treat diseases like cancer and genetic disorders like Down syndrome, by slicing into our genomes (information about our genetics that is encoded in our DNA) with a new super precise technique, named Crispr. We just get smarter by the day.
Our DNA is a very complicated matter. Scientists had previously had to edit the genome almost at random owing to the much less precise techniques used up until now. But Crispr can so accurately delve into all 23 of our chromosomes, that it is expected we’ll even soon be able to treat so-far incurable viruses like HIV. It will literally transform genetic engineering, allowing us to edit the tiniest level of our make-up. Those smug, jaw-less scientists.
“Crispr is absolutely huge. It’s incredibly powerful and it has many applications, from agriculture to potential gene therapy in humans,” said Nobel Prize-sharing Craig Mello, University of Massachusetts. He told the Independent: ”This is really a triumph of basic science and in many ways it’s better than RNA interference. It’s a tremendous breakthrough with huge implications for molecular genetics. It’s a real game-changer. It’s one of those things that you have to see to believe. I read the scientific papers like everyone else but when I saw it working in my own lab, my jaw dropped. A total novice in my lab got it to work.”
By agriculture, Mello means that it could speed up genetically-modified crops and livestock. Definitely something that we shouldn’t be so proud about – one of those inevitable side-effects of evolving humans and our technology that is best left alone.
But the potential to transform families’ hopes for their unborn child’s real, safe, long, happy future without life-shortening genetic disorders like Huntington’s Disease, is something incredible we should be celebrating across the world. Shame it wasn’t in the headlines for long enough. Because we humans are amazing. After all, those super smart scientists are connected to us somewhere along the genetic ladder, right?
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Filed under: Mind, Science, Technology Image may be NSFW.
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