One of the main drivers of CRISPR-Cas9 biotech development is to perform targeted single-nucleotide DNA editing, to cure or significantly reduce the risk of get

One of the main drivers of CRISPR-Cas9 biotech development is to perform targeted single-nucleotide DNA editing, to cure or significantly reduce the risk of getting a disease. Numerous diseases have a genetic component; some people have a higher risk of getting a disease due to their genetic makeup. Often a significant amount of the risk is attributed to a 'single nucleotide polymorphism' or 'SNP' (this is known to be true for diseases like sickle-cell anemia, cystic fibrosis, Alzheimer's disease, and others). If we could alter this SNP however, from the disease-associated nucleotide to the control nucleotide, theoretically this would substantially reduce the risk of getting that disease. CRISPR-Cas9 allows us to do that. This process relies on fabricating an RNA-guide sequence to match the segment of DNA we want edited; and if we are careful, we make sure this Guide RNA matches ONLY this segment of DNA and nowhere else in the genome. If the Guide RNA matches some other random segment of DNA, it will result in 'off-target' edits. Now, this shouldn't really be an issue if we perform whole-genome sequencing on an individual prior to making the Guide RNA. We can just make sure the Guide RNA doesn't match anywhere else in their genome and all is well, right?! Well... maybe not. Maybe these i-Motifs will fuck us over like in the picture I linked above.