3 ms·
is there any practical approach on the horizon (or here) that allows scientists to apply crispr throughout all the cells in a living organism? I get how this
by jbattle 11y ago
is there any practical approach on the horizon (or here) that allows scientists to apply crispr throughout all the cells in a living organism? I get how this works with a single cell, but typically that's only useful for either very very very small or very very very young individuals (right?)
- zardo 11y agoYou don't necessarily need to hit every cell in an organism to produce useful therapies. Most cells aren't going to be expressing the gene that's causing a disease, only cells in the affected tissue or organ need to be treated. In some cases, you may not even need to get all of the affected cells, just repairing a subset could improve outcomes. (1/8 of a functioning pancreas is a lot better than 0/8)
- dnautics 11y agoNo. For permanent genomic changes you have to select what you want. For precise edits, there's usually a counterselection (so it takes two hits). The efficiency of the process is still low. You have to be willing to throw away a lot of cells to get precisely the correct one. One way to think of it is a big component of what CRISPR does is to make it easier to find the good edits (although it does also make good edits more likely).