It's no secret that the future of biology, medicine, agriculture and a whole range of other sciences and industries is associated with the development of genetic engineering. One of the most promising technologies in this area is considered gene editing - CRISPR.
Let's Get Familiar: CRISPR
For the first time, they started talking about the new technology in 1987, when Japanese scientists found repeating groups of sequences of unknown purpose in the DNA of E. coli. They were called difficult: short palindromic (read the same in both directions) repeats, regularly arranged in groups (Clustered Regular Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats).
Why these fragments are needed, it became clear only ten years later. It turned out that palindromic repeats, being part of the immune system, store a “cut” of the genetic material of viruses previously encountered by the bacteria. In the event of a new virus attack, this "database" helps the cell to recognize the enemy faster and, accordingly, to destroy it faster.
This discovery did not generate much interest in the wider scientific community until biologists at the University of California, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier, figured out that the mechanism for recognizing and destroying viruses can be controlled. As the authors of the discovery emphasized in a scientific publication in 2012, by artificially introducing a certain fragment of DNA into the “database”, any selected genome can be cut anywhere. A year later, the next step was taken: a piece of DNA was injected into the cell that was recovering after cutting, which coincided at the edges with the cut chromosome. At the same time, anything could be in the middle - the cell did not recognize the substitution and calmly built the "Trojan horse" into its structure.
This is how humanity received CRISPR, a genome manipulation technology that surpasses all previous ones in terms of availability, accuracy and efficiency. The potential of the technique is such that scientists hope to use it to solve some of the world's global problems.
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Enough food for everyone
For example, CRISPR could permanently eliminate the threat of food shortages, taking agriculture and food processing to a whole new level. Experiments in this direction are already underway.
At the University of California at Berkeley, a type of cocoa bean is being developed that will not be afraid of diseases and fungal infections. DuPont Pioneer, headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, has announced that it will launch a revised corn hybrid in 2020. And Chinese scientists have already managed to use CRISPR to increase the yield of rice and at the same time have developed a cold-resistant breed of pigs that do great in pigsties without heating.
With the help of CRISPR technology, I can make sure that males are no longer born in the mosquito population. Through even Bill Gates became interested: he suggested that scientists introduce natural pesticides and herbicides into plants, which should lead to an increase in the yield and its better storage, and even to reduce the cost of planting maintenance.
Perhaps the only thing that prevents genetically modified products from taking over the shelves in stores and in our refrigerators is public opinion. People are afraid of products obtained, in their opinion, unnaturally, and are willing to pay exorbitant prices for the so-called natural food, grown without any chemical additives or other interventions. However, the recent discovery by a group of scientists from St. Petersburg State University and the Institute of Molecular Biology in Strasbourg may shake confidence in what should be considered natural and natural. Having studied several hundred species of plants, they discovered genetically modified organisms created by nature itself. Among them were the closest relatives of tobacco, sweet potatoes, peanuts, walnuts, tea, cranberries, hops … As the co-author of the discovery emphasized,Professor Tatyana Matveeva: "Our research has shown that humanity has been constantly faced with GMOs throughout its history."
Diseases will be cured before birth
But doctors showed much more interest in the new technique. Indeed, in no other industry could gene editing be as widespread and as beneficial as in medicine.
The world's first attempt to edit the genome of an adult was made in 2017 in California. The experiment agreed to participate 44-year-old Brian Mado, who suffers from mucopolysaccharidosis type II (Hunter's syndrome), due to which he has already undergone 26 operations. The man was going to get married and live with his chosen one as long as possible, and therefore decided on an unusual treatment: to get the missing gene. If successful, more than 10 thousand people would find hope of recovery (this is how many people on Earth have Hunter syndrome). Unfortunately, the doctors' calculations were not justified, and there was no breakthrough in medicine.
Much more effective was the impact on the genome of a still developing organism, which was carried out by a scientist from China Jiankui He. Last November, he shocked the world with the announcement of the birth of the first genome-edited children - twin girls Lulu and Nana. The artificial mutation made them immune to HIV. It was decided to resort to editing, since the girls' father, whose name is hidden behind the pseudonym Mark, is infected.
Several clinics specializing in fertility problems immediately showed interest in the project of the Chinese scientist: their managers reasoned that many parents would want to endow their offspring with resistance to the "plague of the 20th century." But with the help of gene editing, it is possible to save humanity not only from HIV, but also from sickle cell anemia, breast and ovarian cancer, and many more serious diseases.
The baton from He has already been intercepted by an employee of the Moscow Scientific Center for Obstetrics, Gynecology and Perinatology named after Academician V. I. Kulakova Denis Rebrikov. He is going to edit the genome of the fertilized embryos of five congenital deaf couples so that children do not inherit the problem of their parents. Denis Rebrikov has already started work: he is performing genetic editing in eggs taken from a woman with normal hearing - this is necessary to study and prevent possible side effects. The results of the experiments Rebrikov promised to publish. So far, one of the alleged five married couples has given consent to participate in further experiments.
A civilization of "artificial" people?
The scientific world and the general public have been wary of embryo editing. The pioneer, Jiankui He, was particularly criticized. Someone spoke about the inadmissibility of experiments on humans, someone said that the CRISPR technology had not yet been developed and therefore unsafe. But one of the main, although not voiced, reasons is that there is only one step from interfering with the genome of the embryo for therapeutic purposes to creating "designer babies" with clearly defined parameters of appearance, intelligence, psychotype … And this, as they say, a completely different story, in which so far there are more questions than answers.
What if the parents want to "tune" the unborn child in a completely delusional way - to give him the features of Michael Jackson or grow angel wings on his back? Who will defend the right of unborn children to be themselves? Will “artificial” people be considered full members of society? If, at first, genetic design is not available to everyone, will this not lead to a division of society into "improved" rich and natural (read - "worst") poor? Or castes originally intended to do a particular job, as in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley?
The only thing that can be said now is that "designer" babies are still a fantasy. The current level of genetic technology does not allow correct adjustment of many genes responsible for intelligence, aptitude for music or painting, physical strength and endurance. However, there is no doubt that the day will come when this will be possible. And then our descendants will have to solve unparalleled ethical problems, compose new laws and live in accordance with them in a society that is now completely unimaginable, edited at the gene level.
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century №51. Author: Svetlana Yolkina