The Gene Revolution: CRISPR and the Future of Humanity

Introduction

The development of genetic editing technology goes through several stages, as new techniques appear and/or are refined. The most recent and used technique is CRISPR/Cas9 (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/crisper), a bacterial immune system discovered in 2007 by the Spanish microbiologist Francisco Mojica and adapted in 2012 to edit eukaryotic DNA by the American Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuel Charpentier. Genetically cultivated CRISPR/Cas9 is an RNA-guided nuclease developed by the bacteria Streptococcus Pyogenes, meaning it activates the immune system of the bacteria by cutting the DNA of intruding viruses and plasmids, thereby eliminating them.

There has always been a fascination with creation. When Mary Shelley published her work Frankenstein, she showed the world that there were no limits to creation, that it was possible to create life from nothing. Today, gene therapy is something that is on everyone's mind, but the gene revolution was something that scientists had long pursued. The idea of editing DNA, the blueprint of any living being, is not a new idea nor an easy feat. As humans established permanent human society early in the last century, this dream became almost synonymous with the dreams of humans on the moon. In fact, in June 2016, the first baby edited by CRISPR technology was born in China. The man creation question has again been placed in the fray of debate and legal perspectives. Today, it is possible to delete genes encoding viruses that attack human beings, correct diseases that one has in genetic heritage, and make different genetics for those who are not selected in the genetic test.

Understanding CRISPR Technology

These techniques are imprecise, and so each new organism made by these means requires extensive testing, but in the last thirty years, scientists have also developed ways to make highly directed changes to genomes. Most of those ways have involved making relatively big changes to the DNA in cells that are to become egg or sperm, which allows us to feed genetically modified (transgenic) versions to this animal's descendants, and not the animal being modified. Towards the end of the 20th century, we also acquired the ability to swap large pieces of DNA between individuals without regard to whether they will descend from the daughter cell or be otherwise sorted by the cell's DNA segregation machinery.

Human beings have been manipulating biological systems for thousands of years. Over almost all of that time, we have relied almost exclusively on selection. We have selectively bred crops to have desirable characteristics: we like this fruit because it is bigger, or tastes better, or is easier to grow and harvest. We have done the same with our domesticated animals: we like these horses more because they are more docile, or these cattle because