CRISPR

"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."

2017 has just rushed in, to alter our lives, hopefully for the best. As the year lies ahead of us, our brain starts thinking about various things. The best movie of 2017? The most awkward moment of 2017? The biggest breakthrough of science in 2017? Luckily, I might have a good guess what the answer to the third question would be.

Entereth CRISPR. Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats or CRISPR (pronounced crisper) is a gene editing tool which is not very different from the cutting edge technologies we witness in fiction books and movies. CRISPR uses enzymes such as Cas9 to identify and target specific links in a DNA stand. Lets for the sake of simplicity, not make it technical. CRISPR was originally found in Bacteria but through some basic genetic engineering has been extracted from these species of bacteria and now can be used in other versatile environments. It was used by the bacteria to sense any foreign gene sequence and help in its elimination. Like protect it against bacteriophages. Now it's wider use include utilising it to remove genes or even add (or if aptly put edit) them. Basically biologists and genetic engineers have turned a natural bacterial antiviral into the biggest gig of the year or even the century probably. This is evident from the very fact that the people who got Nobel Prize in Biology this year were all CRISPR researchers. Such a complete domination of one topic among the winners has only been seen before in 2002 for genome sequencing.
Right now CRISPR looks the most significant topic of research in biology. With proper implementation it can be used on humans after being tested on other mammals. The testing has already been done on mice and even initial experiments on humans have been done but nothing further. CRISPR can be used to totally eliminate gene based diseases such as sickle cell anaemia. Other syndromes like Downs can finally be cured. It can also be used to throw in new traits in humans. And lets not even talk about the unreal effects it can have on livestock and farming. These professions would change forever. Animal products yield could be easily quadrupled. Death of monetarily profitable species of cattle can be used to endow their favoured features in the next generation. Many plants would become more beautiful. (But really it depends on your definition of beautiful. If you find the colours and vibrancy of a petal as beauty in itself then you might be happy. But if it you find the simplistic yet complex patterns of colour on petal beautiful then you might be saddened).CRISPR can be used in coordination with other genetic engineering techniques as well. Currently one of its major use include along with STEM cell method. It can revolutionise the field of genetics as gene editing will be easier and more possible.

Jennifer Doudna is the pioneer researcher on CRISPR

With CRISPR in our hand, humans can officially sit in the driving seat of evolution cycle. This technology would help scientists place genes or remove them as per requirement. To understand more about this, we need to reinstate how evolution works. Evolution is the change in characteristics of an organism for the purpose of adapting itself better to the environment. It takes centuries. Many primary features we know of today have been a product of evolution like seeds, leaves and wings. Though religiously contradicted but it is probably well known that mammals and even humans themselves are product of evolution of prokaryotes. But lets keep that discussion for some other time. Anyway, by CRISPR scientists can now remove genes which make them prone to perils in the environment. Instead these can then be replaced by genes which will be transcribed into proteins favourable for the organisms growth. This might save a lot of species of organisms from extinction in future when the biosphere becomes more polluted.

The people gradation by Huxley

Perhaps the most significant and mind boggling achievement of CRISPR would be to make Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, a reality. Brave New World is a dystopian novel and definitely one of my favourites. Apart from other gigantic leaps humans will make in the future, it talks about how humans would be mass produced. The novel talks about humans being produced according to the work or profession they will do once they grow up. Their characteristics are determined by the genes in them of course which are controlled by a machine. The gene sequence at each echelon is kept constant. Suppose, an alpha baby is the son of a Cabinet Minister and will have a gene set to code for proteins that will help him live his luxurious life even more easily. Beta baby might grow up to become a creative person. A painter. And the gamma child has strong physical strength for he has to do the labour when he grows up. Now imagine if the creation of this concept could be brought to implementation in reality by CRISPR. It doesn't seem too remote and distant, does it? The technology of CRISPR is capable of performing these feats if the resources are abundant and the techniques are accurate.

But that's not the only problem. We should not forget that CRISPR is itself a biological entity. Like everything in nature it is not bound by human rules. We can tame it and harness its powers but we can't control it forever. There is a one in a million chance that CRISPR might trigger an evolution surge among a normal human being. Generally as aforementioned evolution takes centuries and many generations but what if it were to happen after every generation. Surely it looks profiting but when you observe its not. Its basically equivalent of inducing so many morphological and physiological changes in the body that it cannot handle more. Its like choking on sweet honey poison. It looks and smells good but the experience is not pleasant. This makes CRISPR look like a Bio-weapon that can be used. Newsflash, it can be exploited as a Bio-weapon too. Its immense ability to change genes and complete human features is radical and not irrelevant to the concept of warfare. Fear not though. Even before CRISPR has been fully operational and in 100% go mode, we already have an Anti-CRISPR treatment. Its full functioning honestly goes beyond my scope of understanding but what I can infer from all the bold and technical words is that it inhibits the gene sequence from being changed rapidly and frequently.

"With genetic engineering we will be able to increase the complexity of our DNA and improve the human race."

Next, like all mind-blowing discoveries and inventions, using CRISPR is no box of chocolates (or strawberries, whatever you like). It requires plethora of money, time and...lab rats. Yes, accidents may occur. Moving on, it is no wonder that you need an abundant amount of laboratory equipment and chemicals etc. A state of the art lab is needed too and of course everything should be top notch and modern. I mean, come to think of it, identifying genes is more difficult than stopping Houdini from escaping. So it's only natural that editing them so precariously would be no easy but cracking job. Lastly to target a specified gene too is a cumbersome task and leaves no room for error.

Like every other discovery that challenges human brain, CRISPR also has its fair share of opposition arriving from a decent source: morality. I ask you, would your morality allow the changing of characteristics of a child that hasn't been born yet. Its almost like messing with nature. And is bound to have setbacks and consequences. Moreover human sense is defied by everything that CRISPR can do. Human morals therefore do not allow tampering with the pure and true essence that nature has bestowed. Genetically engineered plants and animals faced so much opposition from people and NGOs on the basis of morality that their true potential was never unlocked in human body. So there's that shadowing the fact that CRISPR experiment on a human that might be considered significant has still not been performed.

Hey, did I mention that Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, half of the Silicon Valley and most of the giant conglomerates of this era sponsor CRISPR research? No?

Bill Gates, we all know who he is.

Oh well I just said it anyway. And it does add a little credibility into the whole concept of CRISPR when these guys finance it. Moreover Silicon Valley is considered the genius haven today and if people from there think that CRISPR is the future and are entrusting it with their money then it's definitely something worth checking out. Still lets not forget that even those guys are human and make mistakes. Also initially only the cas9 enzyme could be used with CRISPR but now casX and casY have been found compatible too. Work to find more enzymes is being carried out as this would assist in editing a greater section of the complete gene pool. Right now though CRISPR's research has come to somewhat of a stalemate owing to the lawsuit battle between two universities, each claiming their right to patent it. For obvious reasons. Both intend to make a mother-lode of money out of it. Fingers crossed because every time money dominates over science, then science gets to pay the price in the form of a compromise. We have the evergreen example of the lawsuit battles between Edison and Tesla. In fact Teslas whole life is a perfect example of why science should be preferred over money. Therefore yeah its current status is seeing a bit of a downfall. Hopefully the issue will be resolved soon.

The demarcation of this debriefing post is to show the different doors that CRISPR is capable of opening whilst weighing in various factors such as limitations and demerits. All of this is just assumptions based on scientific deductions. This is far from close. There are still many impracticalities to be accounted for. This is all based on 'ifs' and 'suppose'. However CRISPR has a big chance to change everything. And once it does, we'll all have to face a Brave New World.

Brief Description of its working