Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats
Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) is a new and revolutionary gene editing technique that allows scientists to pinpoint specific parts of DNA and edit them at will. While the science and technology behind CRISPR are complex, the end goal is simple, to make difficult tasks easier. CRISPR is a naturally occurring defense system that bacteria use to fight off viral infection. Bacteria store pieces of viral DNA and RNA are known as ‘spacers’ in CRISPR regions. The spacer region is inserted into the CRISPR locus at the point that it was acquired to create an immunity to that specific virus by encoding the necessary proteins to destroy it. CRISPRs are part of the bacteria’s natural defense system, where they are targeted to the site of the virus to destroy it.
How It Might Change Our World Shortly
Shortly, CRISPR might be used to edit DNA in human stem cells, and this action could have a wide range of possibilities. Through CRISPR, scientists could develop new stem cells that are capable of differentiating into different tissue types. These developments could lead to the ability to grow organs such as the liver and use it to bypass the need for a donor organ in patients who need liver transplants. Some scientists think that this technology could allow us to grow organs within animals such as pigs, cows, or goats to harvest these organs for transplantation into humans (Yue 7849). While this is all speculation, and we still need to develop this technology further for it to be immediately useful, CRISPR has the potential to change medicine and healthcare as we know it.
CRISPR will be very beneficial in the future of stem cell research. It will help to increase the precision and quantity of stem cells available for use in research. This will benefit scientists around the world because treatments can be more accurately tailored to an individual. With CRISPR, scientists will be able to diagnose and treat diseases excellently. While the medical and healthcare community’s attention is being drawn toward stem cells, many scientists still do not understand stem cells well enough to use them effectively. For more precise treatments to be created, scientists need to understand how stem cells are structured and how they function. This could become a major change that could revolutionize the field of medicine and the world in general.
My Feelings on the Matter
My feelings about CRISPR technology are extremely positive. I think that the future is bright and that things will only continue to get better from here. As life expectancy continues to increase, stem cells may be the key, as they can be used in any area of healthcare and there is still much work to be done, but I believe that for many diseases, such as diabetes, certain cancers, or arthritis, stem cells will be the key to a cure. CRISPR can also be used to rejuvenate aging human cells in the future, especially those that age prematurely, and this could be a major step in the right direction. I would personally like to see CRISPR used in agricultural research to make more efficient food. By doing this, we will be able to produce enough food for the world. I also want to see CRISPR used more in developing countries, as medicine is still very expensive and out of reach for many people who are in need.
Work Cited
Yue, Huahua, et al. “Advances in clustered, regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-based diagnostic assays assisted by micro/nanotechnologies.” ACS nano 15.5 (2021): 7848-7859. Web.