Scientists have a new tool that could let them alter our genes, in a relatively quick and efficient way. In biology, we learn that genes made from DNA determine our looks, our height, how we laugh, and what diseases we may be prone to.
A new engineering technique called CRISPR could give researchers the power to edit DNA for better or for worse.
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RACHEL CRANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Your body contains 37.2 trillion cells. And within each is a copy of a code consisting of more
than 20,000 genes and billions of strands of DNA.
This code is your genome and it determines everything that makes you - - you.
What if you could modify that code, bring back instinct species, eliminate hereditary diseases? That is precisely what molecular engineers and geneticists around the world are working on.
GEORGE CHURCH, GENETICS PROFESSOR, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL: Genes are what we get and we`re stuck with them. The environment is the only thing
we can change and there`s kind of a limit of how much you can do. But now, if we can change our genes, too, really, in a much closer to total control of our biology and physiology.
CRANE: George Church is one of many using a revolutionary gene editing technique called CRISPR-Cas9, which allows you to modify DNA
sequences.
CHURCH: CRISPR is a way that you can design and target a particular part of your genome and change it to something else. Or you can delete a gene. You can make all sorts of edits very precisely.
CRANE: CRISPR is kind of like having to find, delete, replace function for DNA.
No one actually invented the process. It happens naturally. Scientists discovered that bacteria alter their DNA to defend against viruses, essentially storing part of the virus so they can identify, target and attack the virus if it comes back.
Researchers realize the tools bacteria use to do this were Cas proteins, nature`s genetic scissors. Geneticists are now using these proteins to make their own targeted changes to DNA.
CHURCH: This can be used in agriculture where you can change any plant or animal. It can be used to eliminate invasive species.
What`s most exciting about CRISPR is our ability to alter longstanding epidemics like malaria and HIV.
CRANE: And that could potentially save millions of lives.
But CRISPR is not without controversy. Consider what you can do with a person`s DNA.
This past year, for the first time, scientists in China used CRISPR in an unsuccessful attempt to edit the genomes of human embryos.
(on camera): People fear that CRISPR could lead to designer babies. How do we prevent that from happening?
CHURCH: We shouldn`t be playing. We should be engineering. And I think that`s what we are doing.
CRANE: Where do you think the moral and ethical boundary is?
CHURCH: Safety. I think safety is number one. Just like any new technology and new drug, we should try to make it as safe as possible.
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