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C.R.I.S.P.R CAS9 IN
GENETIC ENGINEERING
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 ABSTRACT

Science has gone too far that now it can modify genetic through artificial manipulation and
recombination of DNA. Genetic engineering is applicable for all living organisms including
crops, human and animals. For the process, a tool is being used by the engineers and
researchers is C.R.I.S.P.R CAS9. This tool helps the engineers to modify the genes and make
them correct. They prevent diseases and can enhance crops. This process is helpful in making
crops better and enhanced. It also corrects DNAs of animal and humans and saves many
lives. Not only this, genetic engineering helps to bring a new life into world for example test
tube babies. Researchers believe that genetic engineering has made our lives more easy in
term of provided best for us. Crops are genetically modified which protect them from being
eaten by rootworms and other pest. There are many crops like soy beans, cotton, vegetables
and fruits that are genetically modified to make it insect and pest resistant. This process was
been tested on animals and humans to check if it really works and brings best results. It was
proven through the experiments that this process is beneficial for every living organism.
Animal cells were tested to check if they can fight with dangerous diseases or not. The results
were positive. Genetic engineering helps human and animals to prevent themselves from
dangerous diseases like cancer. Different experiments have been done in past years and every
time a new finding has been recorded which is beneficial for humans especially. The process
of alteration of DNA is simple. Engineers take cells from living organism, isolate DNA from
the cell, alter that DNA according to their need, add back the isolated DNA in to the cell, and
insert that in the host. Aging is nowadays a topic that is being highlighted. Engineers and
researchers believe that humans and animals live till a certain age. The reason they state is the
breakdown of the DNA and cells. Aging is also the reason of DNA breakdown. This should
be slow down, stop or even reverse. Through the technology, engineers are working to slow
down the aging process of human. They are trying to fix DNA to reverse or stop the aging
process. Many of the experiments were done on pregnant moms to prevent their children
from dangerous diseases like HIV and cancer. The DNA was taken from the mother, it was
altered and was inserted back in the ovaries. After the birth, babies were normal and alive. It
proved that the experiment of changing in DNA was successful.
 INTRODUCTION

The word genetic engineering means the process of modification and manipulation of DNA
through various techniques and the process of reproduction and heredity (Rosenberg, 2017).
It is also called Recombinant DNA Technology. In this process, the DNA is manipulated in a
test tube and the process helps the DNA to change its properties and the processes in the
living organism. The process is simple, taking the cell of living organism, DNA from the cell
is being isolated, cleaving the DNA with some restrictions, merging two isolated DNAs and
join them with DNA ligase. Genetic engineering also refers to the alteration of genetic codes
in living organism. The major application for this process is for industrial production. This
process is applied on the crops and other species to alter the genetic codes for desired
production of peptides and proteins (Schildkraut, 2001). Genetic engineering is also used in
pharmaceutical companies to make medicines like insulin. In this process, rDNA technology
plays a very important role in alteration of organism genes using biotechnology. The process
involves isolating the genes which is of more interest and then inserting it into a cloning
vector and then allowing it to perform within the host after expressing completely Different
color codes have been assigned to distinguish different techniques of biotechnology. White is
for industries, blue is for marine, red is for medical and green is for agriculture (Amarakoon
& Roye, 2017).
C.R.I.S.P.R CAS9 IN GENETIC ENGINEERING

U.S. National Library Of Medicine (2020) says that C.R.I.S.P.R is a tool that genetic
engineers and researchers are using to edit genomes. It allows genetic engineers to modify the
gene which makes it used to correct any errors or defects in the gene thus preventing diseases
or enhancing crops and more. C.R.I.S.P.R was first discovered as a gene-editing tool in 2012
by Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier which is now a revolutionary technology.

CRISPR-Cas9 was brought to us by a naturally born genome modifying system in bacteria.

The bacteria seize a small shred of DNA from the hostile viruses and use them to create DNA
bits called CRISPR arrays. The CRISPR arrays helps the bacteria to notice the virus if it
attacked again and then it will produce RNA bits from CRISPR arrays to attack the viruses
DNA then unleashing the enzyme called cas9 to trim the viruses DNA apart thus disabling it.

The same mechanism is being used in labs. By first making a tiny bit of RNA with a short
guide for it to attach to a particular chain of DNA in a genome. And the RNA also attaches to
the cas9 enzyme as well. As seen in the bacteria system the RNA is used to notice the DNA
chain, and then comes the cas9 enzyme job to trim the DNA at the marked location. Although
cas9 is the most commonly used enzyme in this mechanism, there is another enzyme that
does the same job and it's (Cpf1). And after the DNA has been successfully trimmed, genetic
engineering after that uses the cell's own DNA repair mechanism to insert or get rid of
genomes.

By using this revolutionary technology we will be able to do a lot of things, for example, the
treatment of animals to humans to even crops and it doesn't only stop at treatments but
enhancing and modifying crops. Researchers at the moment are using genetic engineering for
humans by finding ways to destroy diseases and eliminating them. And most of this research
and experiments are being done on human cells and animal cells, but at the same time it
doesn't stop only at cell experiments but it's also done on live animals. But because the
experiments aren't guaranteed nor safe and that's why it isn't used on humans.
There have been a lot of achievements done by genetic engineering over the years that helped
and treated a lot of diseases such as, single-gene disorder cystic fibrosis, hemophilia, and
sickle cell disease. It also had great footprints in research and experiments in order to find
and create treatments for a lot of hard and stubborn diseases, such as cancer, heart diseases,
(HIV).

Bailey (1999) says that Genetic engineering has benefited us by editing animals and crops to
our advantages and best use. For example, in our daily life we eat a lot of vegetables and
fruits but a lot of them have been actually genetically modified like corn which is the most
modified species of crop. By modifying the crop it became resistant to rootworms and the
Asian corn borer and other pests. And also soybeans and cotton and much more where made
resistant to pests and diseases and insect resistance. As well as making some crops more
nutritious, improving the taste, shape and even smell. As well as making them require less
water and also making the crop to produce and flourish and poor soil areas and harsh
conditions.

Tucker (2018) says that genetically enhancing farm animals and even wild ones, has been
done a lot of times and researchers still do it till now and it has been proven very beneficial
for us. It's mostly done to make animals more resistant to some viruses and diseases but it
also makes them produce more products or even change their product, there is a lot of
enhanced animals but this list will be more about the most recent enhanced animals and the
most beneficial to us. For example, researchers have extracted a part of DNA from pigs
which was responsible for them being weak and not able to fight back a disease like porcine
reproductive and respiratory syndrome. And it was very beneficial because of the amount of
money and trouble it was causing to the farmers at an estimated value of 1.5B pounds a year.
Also, a British company named Oxitec has made a genetically enhanced mosquito, giving
them a gene that limits their offsprings, meaning that when the enhanced mosquito mates its
offsprings will not be able to reach adulthood and by that making them unable to spread
viruses like (Zika) or even (Malaria). One new enhancement was done to a cow to make it
produce milk similar to the milk that is produced by the female human. It was done by
scientist from China and Argentina, and it seems that it worked and the cow seemed to
produce milk that had more protein that was made by humans and less of the normal milk
that cows produce. So maybe this would be an easier way to feed our infants and might be
even cheaper and more healthy than the dried powder milk. But still, scientists are
researching it to make sure it's safe and healthy to be consumed.

Research in genetic engineering for humans has been very hard for scientists or might be
even impossible at this time, that's the case for grown humans at least but scientist mainly do
their human research on embryos. You might think this is strange and unheard of but the
matter of fact is that this is the most effective and fastest way scientist have to see the
changes that happen after the editing with CRISPR. But there is still some rules to this it's not
like scientist are evil and torturing baby, one of the main rules is that the embryo can not
exceed the limit of 14 days after that it should be discarded of. But although this might seem
for some people as unimportant, it is in fact very important for advancing our knowledge on
diseases and treating them and a lot more.

Rice University (1999-2020) says that one of the most fascinating concepts in genetic
engineering is cloning or the remaking of an almost identical replica. But in terms of biology,
the act of cloning a whole living organism is called reproductive cloning. But of course, it
isn't by any means a simple task. Scientists at first experimented on copying tiny and short
stretches on DNA- which is described today as molecular cloning.

Milova (2018) states that one of the most shocking and controversial experiments done on
babies happened recently when a Chinese researcher Jiankui He and his team at the southern
university of science and technology of china have been paying and hiring couples to create
the world’s first modified, babies. and that they would have a resilience to HIV, the embryos
were edited first by CRISP then injected or implanted in the mother. The babies have been
successfully born and still alive. And scientists have confirmed that a change has actually
happened in there DNA.

Milova (2018) suggests that Designer baby as people call them are babies that have been
edited and giving special traits and advantages from different donors. Which means that
scientists have the ability to give an embryo all kind of rare human traits like for example the
color of there eyes and hair, and also even giving them a higher IQ trait, resilience to
diseases, even certain human facial and bodily features. This for us is revolutionary; the
possibilities of what we can do are almost infinite. Just the idea of having an entire generation
with the best traits in human history embedded in them is crazy; this is might be the biggest
evolutionary change in humankind. Making the generation disease resilient, smarter and more
creative and more.

One of the factors that genetic engineering works on fixing and solving is aging. Scientists
estimate that the biggest mortality rate is aging which is almost two-third of 150 thousand
people die. Currently, it is thought that aging is caused by the accumulation of damage to our
cells and DNA breaks and the system that is responsible for fixing them and keeping them
alive over time. But some scientists assume that it is possible to stop the process of aging and
even slow or even completely reverse it. We also know for a fact that there are a lot of
animals in the nature that are immune to aging. But for sure eventually, we will die but at
least humans will live a couple of hundred to maybe thousands of years. Also, that means we
would be eliminating all the diseases and immune to them. Even further we engineer humans
in the future to handle space travel and adapt in other planets. But scientist’s still face a lot of
problems and obstacles but we are getting closer every year to our goals.

Ledford (2020) says that recently there was an experiment on a man that was suffering from a
disease that made him blind, and this experiment was done recently. This experiment was
done as a big step into testing the capabilities of CRISPR - cas9 gene editing methods into
removing and treating mutations that cause a rare condition in the body called Leber’s
congenital amaurosis 10 (LCA10). And in our time and technology, we are still unable to find
a cure or a way to cure it. This condition is one of the leading causes of blindness in
childhood. One of the first steps the scientist did was to get the components of the gene-
editing system – encoded in the genome of a virus then it was injected directly into the eye
and it is near the photoreceptors cells. It is also recorded that there were also other records of
clinical experiments done before on patients using the same method by editing the genomes
of cells that have been removed from the person's body and after that the substances are then
infused back into the patient.

National Human Genome Research Institute (2017) says that the debate about genome editing
has been around for such a long time. And the fact is that this new technology is being
studied by a lot of biologists and it is becoming more and more important in our
advancement. But still with every good thing comes its negatives and that happened to
CRISPR in the last years it has been proven that the experiments that have been performed to
test CRISPR, all of them have been close to unethical for having the use of embryos and even
babies in there mothers womb. And in some cases, it didn't stop there but they actually leave
the modified embryo in the womb of the mother and give birth to it. As in the case of the
Chinese scientist and his team. And that was the incident that made people talk about the
methods and experiments that were being used and question there ethicality. This is what also
caused the governments to put more regulations on the experimentations of human embryos
and genetic modifications on humans.
 REFERENCES

Amarakoon, ... M.E. Roye (2017), in Pharmacognosy;

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/genetic-engineerings

Dr. Eugene Rosenberg, (2017) It's in Your DNA,

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/genetic-engineering

Ian, T (2018 jun 24)Genetically modified animals, The Guardian. Retrieved

from:https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/24/genetically-engineered-
animals-the-five-controversial-science Accessed date (10/1/2020).

Pat, B (1999 Dec 10)Backgrounder on Genetic Modification of Crops and Animals,

UCDAVIS. Retrieved from:https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/backgrounder-genetic-
modification-crops-and-animals/ Accessed date (10/1/2020).

Schildkraut (2001), in Encyclopedia of Genetics,

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/genetic-engineering

U.S. National Library Of Medicine (2020), What are genome editing and CRISPR-Cas9?;
https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/genomicresearch/genomeediting

Heidi Ledford (2020), CRISPR treatment inserted directly into the body for first time;

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00655-8

What are the ethical concerns of Genome Editing? (2017); https://www.genome.gov/about-

genomics/policy-issues/Genome-Editing/ethical-concerns