3 ms·
An editorial in Nature recently described CRISPR as "the biggest game changer to hit biology since PCR." [polymerase chain reaction]. PCR is used everywhere: fr
by mudil 11y ago
An editorial in Nature recently described CRISPR as "the biggest game changer to hit biology since PCR." [polymerase chain reaction]. PCR is used everywhere: from forensics DNA analysis to pathology tests. CRISPR in the near future might be used to "fix" genes in a variety of conditions: from Duchenne muscular dystrophy to cancer.
Really, it's that big!
http://www.nature.com/news/crispr-the-disruptor-1.17673 http://www.nature.com/news/crispr-the-disruptor-1.17673
- lvs 11y agoThe hype is just out of control on this. It's a new tool in the lab that is of some use, but none of these other fantastical claims are anywhere near the real world, and they may never be. This method suffers the same risks as viral therapies that have also been very difficult to bring to real patients.
- mudil 11y agoMaybe. Maybe not. Viral therapies suffer from one problem: viruses. (They might be infectious, or not. They might be attacked by the immune system or not.) CRISPR technique does not need an external vector.
- timrpeterson 11y agoHow does the cas9 protein get in?
- kbenzle 11y agoBoth protein and guide RNA need to be expressed in the organism, so viral, bacterial or mechanical introduction of DNA is still necessary.
- gww 11y agoCIRSPR requires a method to deliver the nuclease complexes to cellular targets in a living organism. I believe the only methods tried so far used adenoviruses.
- pcrh 11y agoA few recent papers have shown that it can be done by directly introducing the required proteins.
- pcrh 11y agoModern gene editing is not a paradigm shift, but rather a technical innovation, and one that will surely bear fruit, at least at the level of substantially increasing the rate at which biological research and bio-industry processes can advance. Crispr, and the newly identified similar process using Cpf1, allow one to perform gene editing at a rate and on a scale not previously feasible. Whether it will eventually have benefits in medicine remains to be seen. Previous technological breakthroughs in genetic modification, such as adenovirus-mediated gene therapy, RNAi, etc, have had limited impact. I believe the best effects have occurred in the fields of several narrowly defined leukemias. In these cases the entire cell population is under constant renewal, so introducing an engineered line of blood cells and removing the malignant one has been technically possible since the invention of bone marrow transplants. Doing so for other cell types or organs is much more difficult.