With CRISPR poised to revolutionise therapy, a pause to consider ethical issues
- February 9, 2024
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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With CRISPR poised to revolutionise therapy, a pause to consider ethical issues
Subject: Science and tech
Section: Biotech
What is CRISPR?
- CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats.
- CRISPR-Cas9 is the most prominent technology that enables to edit parts of the genome by removing, adding or altering sections of the DNA sequence.
- The CRISPR-Cas9 system consists of two key molecules that introduce a change mutation into the DNA.
- Cas9- An enzyme that acts as a pair of ‘molecular scissors’ that can cut the two strands of DNA at a specific location in the genome.
- Guide RNA (gRNA)- The gRNA is designed to find and bind to a specific sequence in the DNA.
- The Cas9 follows the guide RNA to the same location in the DNA sequence and makes a cut across both strands of the DNA.
- At this stage, the cell recognises that the DNA is damaged and tries to repair it.
- The DNA repair machinery is used to introduce changes to one or more genes in the genome of a cell of interest.
- The technology replicates a natural defence mechanism in some bacteria that uses a similar method to protect itself from virus attacks.
What are the advantages of this technology?
- Faster and Cheaper– It is faster and cheaper than previous techniques of editing DNA.
- High accuracy– Genetic engineering has made the work more accurate by allowing scientists to have greater control on trait development.
- Viable compared to GMO- CRISPR technology proves viable against the criticisms of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO).
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What are the issues with CRISPR technology?
- Ethical concerns– In 2018, a Chinese researcher’s disclosure of creating a ‘designer baby’ has caused widespread concern in the scientific community.
- Biological concerns– Though the technology is not 100% precise and has the risk of causing mutations, side effects and undesirable changes like antibiotic resistance.
- Genetic drive – Once the manipulated genes get transferred on to next generations, they become part of the environment.
- Gene gap– CRISPR can be very expensive and get limited to those who can afford it.
Where does India stand in the field of gene editing and CRISPR?
- India is at its infancy when it comes to genome editing.
- Research in gene editing is not so abundant but it is growing steadily.
- Although the funding for biology has been steadily growing, a lot of investment is needed in infrastructure.
- India’s draft gene-editing rules allows genome-edited organisms without any “foreign” genes to be subjected to a different regulatory process than the one applied to genetically engineered products.