What is CRISPR-Cas?

CRISPR-Cas is a powerful new technology that is revolutionising biology. It’s like cut and paste for DNA and provides efficient and accurate processes for editing genomes.

Scientists are already using CRISPR to introduce genes for disease resistance into wheat and insert malaria-blocking genes into mosquitoes. CRISPR could even allow us to eliminate certain genetic diseases in humans.

These types of experiments raise important ethical issues, which will be discussed further in the next step.

The associated video was produced by the Microbiology Society. Further information can be found at the society’s website.

Note that, as we already highlighted at the end of week 2 of this course, this research was rewarded in October 2020 with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The award was made to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna “for the development of a method for genome editing”. Further details are available here.

© UEA and Biochemical Society, 2020. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.