“Biology continues to demonstrate evolutionary progress with impressive results accruing in incremental steps, but there are also revolutionary changes taking place, and these are going to have world-changing impact. I want to be the first to tell you about CRISPR …..one of the revolutionary techniques about to transform biology and the treatment of human disease.
CRISPR is a shorthand term describing a newly discovered method of gene editing, the ability to alter the genetic code so easily that it can be used by an advanced high school student to create new genes in living organisms. CRISPR is a technique so revolutionary it has allowed the most highly skilled researchers at Harvard Medical School to edit 60 genes at one time in pigs, clearing out genetic impediments to organ transplant & paving that way for pigs to grown organs that can be readily transplanted into human beings without causing rejection.
Any genetic transformation that you can think of can be done with relative ease, using CRISPR. And the possibilities of ‘dialing in’ the genes that you want, or the ones you want to remove, holds great promise, but also ethical concerns about the power to create new life forms more easily than ever before. ”
Links:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/10/health/gene-editing-pigs-organ-transplants.html
http://www.nature.com/news/gene-editing-record-smashed-in-pigs-1.18525