Gene Editing Essay

Gene Editing Gene editing is a hot new topic in the world of science and is being recognized by many for its ability to allow scientist to manipulate the genome of any living creature using specialized tools to edit the DNA. Essentially science is unveiling how we could potentially play God in the very near future by editing a person’s genome to remove disease or create designer babies for prospecting parents. These four articles provide a solid overview of gene editing, specifically the tool CRISPR/Cas9 which allows the scientist working with them to manipulate the removal of gene sequences that might otherwise produce an ill effect upon the patient or embryo. All four articles bring to light that CRISPR/Cas9 is a tool that will allow scientist

Other popular gene editing tools are zinc finger nuclease(ZFN) and transcription activator-like effect nuclease(TALENs), both of which are similar to CRISPR but less efficient. As to how scientist will use these editing tools is a whole different matter. One that I particularly applaud and am very much interested in is the use of CRISPR by a team of scientist lead by Kathy Niakan. They will be the first to utilize CRISPR in the UK, with their work focused on removing parts of the human genome to examine the effect on the development of a human embryo. They claim to know much about the development of a mouse embryo, but what they are after is how the human embryo develops. What I found fascinating was that they are using the studies to help parents who are struggling with pregnancy by looking at which sequence could be causing the embryo to not implant into the wall of the uterus. This therapeutic has been powerful enough to allow scientist to even remove the mutation for sickle cell anemia to HIV. (U.K Approves First Studies of New Gene Editing Technique CRISPR on Human Embryos, Web) But CRISPR/Cas9 has drawn much