Genetic Scissors ✂️!!!

abreusoleidy

@abreusoleidy · 20 Jul 2021

Genetic Scissors ✂️!!!

#science

At the beginning of October, two female scientists, the French Emmanuelle Charpentier and the US Jennifer Doudna, were announced as the winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020 for the so-called “CRISPR scissors”, a revolutionary technique that allows cutting a gene, changing the DNA of animals, plants and microorganisms with extremely precision discharge.

CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors have revolutionized molecular life sciences, provided new opportunities for plant breeding (plant genetic improvement), contributing to innovative cancer therapies and can make the dream of curing hereditary diseases a reality.

But this achievement wasn't the only one. This year, the technique successfully treated two hereditary blood diseases: beta-thalassemia, which generates low levels of hemoglobin protein that carries oxygen, causing weakness and exhaustion; and sickle cell anemia, a defective form that results in sickle-shaped red blood cells that block blood vessels and often cause severe pain, organ damage and strokes.

In both cases, after treatment patients have not experienced the painful attacks that used to occur every few months or have they needed transfusions.

But when studying how these enzyme scissors work that bacteria use to cut defective DNA and defend themselves against viral infections, Doudner and his colleague Martin Jinek had a “Eureka moment”.

They realized that this CRISPR/Cas9 enzyme could be programmed to cut DNA sequences very precisely.

It was one of the most important discoveries in the history of biology because it opened the doors to genetic editing and the possibility of rewriting the genome not only human, but of every living organism. #science