Rewriting The Code Of Life With Gene Editing

Rewriting The Code Of Life With Gene Editing

The late physicist and scientist, Stephen Hawking, made headlines this week by suggesting the future existence of a “Super-Human” race through a series of articles and essays. The scientist based his predictions on a technique called Genome Editing with a special emphasis on CRISPR-Cas9.

What is gene-editing?

DNA is the genetic instruction manual that all living organisms come with. A gene is a unit of heredity and is a region of DNA that influences a particular characteristic in an organism. Imagine, writing an essay and using Grammarly to correct the parts of essay that are grammatically incorrect. Gene editing works like Grammarly software and edits the part of DNA that may lead to genetic disorders or harmful mutations.

CRISPR-Cas9

CRISPR-Cas9’s inspired by the natural editing system in bacterias. Bacterias store snippets of DNA information from invading viruses. This process allows bacterias to remember and to attack the viruses’ DNA in case of future invasion. The bacterias use enzymes to cut the DNA and disable the virus.

CRISPR-Cas9 functions like a scissor for humans, animals and plants. CRISPR-Cas9 is a molecular tool that identifies the mutated gene and uses an enzyme (Cas9) to cut the defective gene. Once the DNA is cut, one can rely on the DNA repair mechanism to fix the damage.

Gene-Editing and Medicine

A mutated gene can be passed down to generations and each generation could suffer from genetic diseases or disorders such as cystic fibrosis, cancers etc. One in every 25 children is born with a genetic disorder. Genome editing can prove to be a great boon by rewriting the code of life. The benefits of gene-editing have already been seen as the technique has been used modify cells and make them resistant to HIV Aids.

Researches have shown that CRISPR-Cas9 can be used to deactivate viruses in pigs thus allowing the organs of the genetically modified pigs to be used for human transplants. Furthermore, the future of gene-editing involves fixing potential genetic disorders in embryos.

While Stephen Hawking’s articles and essays raised a serious controversy about gene editing revolving around designer babies and the eventual extinction of the ‘average’ human race, gene editing can prove to be the future of medicine. The future looks bright, however, some unanswered questions remain - would genome editing lead to the extinction of the current ‘average’ human race, as we know it? Would the technology be available to all or only to the crème de la crème? Most importantly, would you invest in creating a generation of self-designing humans or would you let ethics lead the way? We are looking forward to what the future holds for us.