How CRISPR has and will continue to affect the lives of humans

Georgia Eyerman

Mrs. Wilson

Biology Period 5

12/10/20
 How CRISPR has and will continue to affect humans

CRISPR (Cluttered, Regularly, Interspaced, Short, Palindromic, Repeats) is a genome

editing technology that has and will continue to have a great effect on the lives of all humans.

CRISPR is a new technology that allows humans to edit genomes of any organism (Medline,

2016). This technology will have an impact on the lives of humans because it allows the editing

of people, animals, or plants. CRISPR is a tool that will have a large impact on the world through

many different ways.

CRISPR is a gene editing technology. CRISPR allows us to find specific parts of DNA inside

a cell. Once these specific parts are found organisms can begin to be altered. Information is

coded within the DNA, and humans found a way to alter this DNA in a way that can change

certain parts of an organism. The DNA carries a code that writes instructions, changes to the

code and changes to instructions within the code, thus changing the organism. CRISPR allows

genetic material to be added, removed, or altered at the particular gene location (Kurzgesagt,

2016) . How exactly does CRISPR work? CRISPR proteins are added to a cell, along with a piece

of guide RNA. The protein hooks with the RNA guide then moves along the DNA strand until it

finds the DNA sequence that matches the RNA guide. Once it matches they bind together. Once

bound the proteins can disable or edit a gene. While there were ways of editing genomes

before the discovery of CRISPR, it was time consuming and took quite a lot of money. CRISPR

has made it cheaper and easier to alter DNA.

CRISPR will have an impact on the health of humans. It is believed that it will lead to the

eradication of diseases, viruses, and even hereditary diseases. Whether the disease is slightly

annoying or fatal, CRISPR is believed to be able to end it. When bacteria cells are attacked by a
virus they often try to resist but fail most of the time due to weak protection tools. If they

survive the attack, they save the virus DNA in a DNA code called CRISPR. If the virus attacks

again the bacteria makes an RNA copy and makes a protein called Cas9. Cas9 scans the bactrim

for signs of the virus, they do this by comparing bits of copied DNA. When a match is found it

can cut out the virus DNA (Kurzgesagt, 2016). The CRISPR system is programmable. You can give

a copy of the DNA you would like to modify into a living cell. This can remove and eradicate

viruses. An example of this was a study done with rats and HIV. In 2015 a study was done on rats

that carried the HIV virus in almost all of their body cells. By injecting CRISPR into the tails of the

rats almost 50% of the HIV virus was removed from cells all over the body. With this information

it is thought that within decades CRISPR therapy could cure the HIV virus.

It is also thought that CRISPR could defeat cancer. Cancer occurs when the cancer cells

refuse to die and continue to multiply without being noticed by your immune system (Live

Science 2018) CRISPR could alter humans' immune cells to make them better cancer hunters .

This would allow the cancer cells to be found and destroyed by immune cells. CRISPR could also

be the end to genetic disease. Some genetic diseases for example are caused by a single

incorrect letter of DNA. Modified versions of Cas9 are being made to change single DNA letters

to possibly reverse the damage.

CRISPR may also be used to create designer babies. Technology to alter the human

embryo already exists, but is currently in its early stages of development. Modified humans

could possibly alter the genomes of the entire population (Kurzgesagt, 2016). When embryos

are genetically modified the modifications can continue to be passed down through generations

(If an embryo is modified to have different eye colors for example, that trait will continue to be
passed down through generations. The engineered traits can spread through their children and

continue to modify the gene pool of humanity. Editing embryos would likely be used to

eliminate genetic diseases or become immune to certain diseases at first. Once the technology

becomes more refined it's likely that people will begin to alter things like appearance,

enhanced metabolism, perfect eyesight, posture structure, height.

It is believed that CRISPR could possibly stop, slow down, or even reverse aging. The

current idea on why we age is due to the idea that cells break down over time. There are genes

that directly affect aging. It is thought that through a combination of genetic engineering or

therapies could slow down to even begin to reverse aging (Kurzgesagt, 2016). We know that

there are animals that are immune to aging. Animals like lobsters and certain types of jellyfish

are immune to aging. Other animals like crocodiles, tortoises, and clams live a very long time.

Often dying from things such as preditors and not old age. There are ideas of borrowing these

animals' genes as a way to expand the length of human lives

CRISPR is something that still needs to be heavily researched and worked with but has

the possibilities to change the world and how we live in it. While there are still questions to be

answered about CRISPR, there is no doubt that it is something that will change the world of

every human being. The possibilities of CRISPR are endless. It's possible to modify people. This

could rid the world of disease, aging, even specific traits. While there are still things to be

questioned, like the ethics or effects of this modification it's definitely something to be further

researched. CRISPR is a tool that will have a large impact on the world we live in, through many

different ways
Sources

Kurzgesagt (2016, Aug 10th). Genetic Engineering Will Change Everything Forever-CRISPR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAhjPd4uNFY&t=342s

Doudna, J. (2016, Nov 12th) How CRISPR lets us edit our DNA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdBAHexVYzc&list=PL0UObCXRGnvLNSi1Bg5J09MtO60HAe
tM6&index=1

Page, M. (N/A). What is CRISPR

https://www.newscientist.com/term/what-is-crispr/#:~:text=CRISPR%20is%20a%20technology
%20that,alter%20that%20piece%20of%20DNA

Live Science (2018, July 29th) How Close Are We, Really to Curing Cancer with CRISPR
https://www.livescience.com/63192-curing-cancer-crispr.html

Medline Plus (2016, Aug 14th). What are Genome Editing and Cas9
https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/understanding/genomicresearch/genomeediting/#:~:text=Th
e%20CRISPR%20arrays%20allow%20the,apart%2C%20which%20disables%20the%20virus

Webster, M. and Wheeler, S. (2017, Feb 24th). Update: CRISPR

N/A I couldn’t get the link because it was a spotify podcast. This was the Radiolab podcast we
were required to listen to in your class