by gloriousduke on 12/6/16, 1:03 AM with 5 comments
by dekhn on 12/6/16, 1:07 AM
More people came to understsand that CRISPR is just a useful tool, another one we've borrowed from the wonderful bacteria. Like restriction endonucleases, the new tech transforms how we do many processes in the lab, and probably also in the hospital.
However, that's all it is. A tool. A tool that makes what was really hard slightly easier. Modifying the DNA of a genome in place was always the easy part. Biology does that all the time (viruses, lambda switch, yeast mating types, etc).
Figuring out what to change the DNA to, ensuring the modification is 100% accurate, in the right place, and no off-target effects, those are all harder problems. Biology requires thousands to millions of years to improve on phenotypes, and we're just now starting to realize how hard it is to change one part of the genome without adjusting for that change in a million other locations.
And CRISPR/cas9- the tech being argued over. It's not even that useful. It's blunt-end joining, newer techniques with fewer off target effects using overlap joining are being worked out. cas9 might be obsolete before anybody even gets a Nobel Prize for it!
by anonymfus on 12/6/16, 2:04 AM
by 88e282102ae2e5b on 12/6/16, 2:44 AM