A team of Florida State University researchers has unlocked a decades-old mystery about how a critical cellular process is regulated and what that could mean for the future study of genetics. All of this work has, however, been based on the “fact” that mitochondria pass down the female line only, something we now know to be wrong. Roughly 60 years later, Gilbert determined how replication was regulated. As reported by Nature4 in 2016, “Researchers use CRISPR-Cas9 to make precise changes to genomes that remove or edit a faulty gene”.
The researchers hope to continue studying the dynamics of different types of chromosomes and exploring whether abnormal cells, like cancer cells, have different dynamics. In a new study, however, scientists have demonstrated the movement of chromosomes within cells also may play a role in human traits and health. Understanding this movement better could have big implications for the study of genetic diseases, human health and gene editing. CRISPR doesn’t work, either because the genome edit is stitched up or the cell is dead.
Unintended and Unforeseeable Side Effects Abound in Genetic Engineering. It might also be expanded to genes linked to other diseases. Gene therapy is not any different. In China scientists used human embryos given by donors of embryos that could not have resulted in a live birth, to edit a specific gene. Esvelt’s computer gene drive simulations calculated that a resulting edited gene “can spread to 99 percent of a population in as few as 10 generations, and persist for more than 200 generations”.
According to a Scientific American Report, He Jiankui, a professor at Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, claims that he used CRISPR-Case 9 gene editing to prevent the spread of HIV. Patented in 2014, CRISPR is a gene-editing technique that uses molecular scissors to precisely snip genetic code. Sometimes every time a gene is broken, it can result in a disease. It might also be possible to fix genetic mutations with no cutting.
Shortly before the start of the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong this week, it was announced that Chinese researcher, He Jiankui, had successfully used a technique called Clustered Randomly Interspersed Short Palindromic Repeats ( CRISPR ) to create gene-edited babies resistant to HIV infection. Researchers used genetic engineering to create thousands of tiny variations in a gene linked to breast cancer, and tested each one in a lab to predict whether it would promote the disease if it appeared in a person.
Scientists compared the sequenced genomes of 179 people to data held in the Human Gene Mutation Database ( HGMD ) on genetic mutations known to cause disease. Chromatin regulates the transfer of genetic information, which is essential for the correct development and function of a human being. More than 100 scientists, most of them in China, have condemned as “crazy” and unethical a geneticist’s claim that he altered the genes of twin girls born this month to create the first gene-edited babies. News about the birth of these two girls came on the eve of the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing. On the same day a Chinese scientist announced he had used CRISPR gene editing technology to give twin babies resistance to HIV infection.
