Described as “the biggest biotech discovery of the century” by the scientific community, CRISPR-Cas has been all the rage in labs around the world for its exceptional ease and accuracy in editing the gene of almost any organism.
In 2012, UC Berkeley’s world-renowned RNA expert and biochemist Jennifer Doudna was part of a research team that discovered that you could use the CRISPR system as a programmable tool: scientists can precisely target a gene sequence, cutting and changing the DNA at that exact point.
CRISPR, which stands for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats” are repeated DNA sequences that are an essential component of a bacteria’s defense system against viruses.
And what started out as a study to understand the bacterial immune system unwittingly resulted in a powerful technology that has the potential to cure genetic diseases, create more sustainable crops, and even render animal organs fit for human transplants.
We’ve had gene-editing technology for decades, but now, “we’re basically able to have a molecular scalpel for genomes,” says Doudna.
“All the technologies in the past were sort of like sledgehammers.”Watch & learn:http://www.businessinsider.com/how-the-crispr-dna-editing-tool-works-2015-10
Corina Marinescu
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