Written by Yonje R. (KIS'19)
Edited by YoonSung K. (KIS'21)
━━ February 26, 2018 ━━
What exactly is CRISPR? And what is its importance in our medical world today? CRISPR, short for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat is defined by the dictionary as the “segment of DNA containing short repetitions of base sequences, involved in the defense mechanisms of prokaryotic organisms to viruses.” To put it simply, CRISPR is an effortless yet extremely powerful bacterial defense system that creates the foundation of the CRISPR- Cas9 (the full name of CRISPR) genome modifying technology, one of many systems today used to edit and adjust the DNA at extremely specific locations in our bodies. CRISPR itself includes a wide variety of applications that can be used in our human body; a couple examples would include correcting any genetic defects in the DNA codes, treating and impeding any diseases from harming the body and improving the growth of crops.
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The Problem with CRISPR
Introduced only five years ago, the CRISPR Cas has been adopted and studied in many research labs, often being widely known as the “game-changing invention” or “the new method of treating diseases,” as it has been tested in human embryos and even on humans, just two years ago in 2018. It was officially discovered in 2013, when what was known at that time as “CRISPR fever” began to infiltrate labs and research centers worldwide at a much readily accessible and cheaper price, almost a tenth of what it used to cost. Although this may all seem like a good idea, perhaps even one that is revolutionary, many issues and concerns have recently surfaced regarding the true intentions of this technology, the harms that it could certainly bring to not only the human evolution but as well as the science of gene editing.
To begin with, in the recent years, CRISPR, among many technologies that are known for modifying genome sequences, has been identified as to contributing and further escalating the percentage of people suffering from autism, psychiatric risk, personality and intelligence disorder, which appears to be quite ironic given the fact that CRISPR is meant to treat diseases at hand. Due to the fact that this application entails guiding an enzyme to a string of DNA, “cutting” the DNA code into tiny, molecular pieces, and injecting it with other bits of DNA or genetic material, this process requires a high level of meticulous work, one that can often be difficult to achieve. It can therefore often be said that something amidst the process of CRISPR can cause a mutation in the genes, thriving the diseases that we most commonly know today. However, we can not for sure, one hundred percent, state this as being the main factor, the main cause of these diseases. Biology, in its entirety, and the composition of these genes, are so complicated in the way that each and every gene intertwines and connects with each other, completing the human body altogether. Many genetic elements are considered as pleiotropic, where they have dependent effects on each other as well as the surrounding cells and tissues. With this, we can not only infer that it is hard to distinguish the exact severity that a specific gene may have on the human body but as well as understand that CRISPR may not entirely cause the disease itself but coerce the disorders to become even more critical.
Second, many researchers and scientist have leaned towards the side that CRISPR has become a problematic issue for the human evolution due to a philosophical belief: the natural process and flow of the human body. Over the course of scientific study, scientists have come to the conclusion that as a representation of machines, humans should not be reconstructed and changed artificially, the way that CRISPR and similar gene editing technologies are attempting to accomplish today. As they believe that the human body should not be altered, they have committed themselves to the idea that the further development of CRISPR may end up ruining the human evolution by manually adjusting and tweaking parts of the human body that was originally not meant to be this way. Even Charles Darwin himself elaborated on the idea that human evolution, or even evolution for that matter, does not advance toward one exemplary model or one specific form, but rather strives towards the action of mending and adapting itself along the way. Nowhere in the environment, we inhabit today states how each gene should operate.
Finally, with the benefits that genetic variants bring to the human evolution surfaces disadvantages, detriments that only counterbalance the good that has been brought by CRISPR. The genetic alterations that supposedly treat our diseases and provide us with small competence advantages (better mathematically, better concentration, better focus) have, at the same time, many us more susceptible to far more deleterious outbreaks. This idea was supported with evidence in 1966, when Richard Lewontin and John Hubby, two scientists, offered the idea of “balancing selection,” an idea that requires leaving any harmful genetic versions in the population to allow for diversity to flourish within the population. Although these versions do not cause any harm to an individual that has one copy, having a copy of the rare, harmful genetic variation and in addition, a copy of a more ordinary gene can create some issues. The combination of these two genes sparks the APOE4 variant, the number one most powerful risk variant for Alzheimer’s disease, with an absolutely soaring percentage of 15% frequency in a population group; however, there is a flip side to this variant. APOE4 produces an inexplicably large amount of Vitamin D, a secosteroid (an endocrine mechanism that is consequently produced most often in the human skin, kidneys, and liver) that is vital for increasing absorption of calcium and for aiding the immune system. As a result, it is important to outweigh the values of CRISPR, to determine whether it is worth risking the disadvantage to earn the advantage at the end.
To conclude, it goes without saying that
every system, every application, every process has its own advantages and disadvantages. For CRISPR, there seems to be a struggle with balancing out the positive effects, treating certain diseases and manually editing DNA codes, and the negative
effects, producing more risk towards diseases and interrupting the unrefined procedure of human evolution. With studies that are being done daily on this issue, only time will be able to tell if this method is capable of truly providing us with the most aid while yielding the less amount of damage upon humans. Until then, we can only conclude for sure that CRISPR is, to this day, underdeveloped and in need of constant improvements in order to guarantee a success in the line of our human evolution.
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Bibliography:
- Hehir, Jason. “CRISPR: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.” The Skeptilogicon, 28 Sept.
- Kozubek, Jim. “How CRISPR and Gene Editing Could Ruin Human Evolution.” Time, Time,
- Novella, Steven. “CRISPR and the Ethics of Gene Editing.” Science-Based Medicine, SBM,
- Pak, Ekaterina. “CRISPR: A Game-Changing Genetic Engineering Technique.” Science in
the News, 31 July 2014, sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2014/crispr-a-game-changing-genetic-engineering-technique/.
- Porostocky, Art by Thomas. “Pro and Con: Should Gene Editing Be Performed on Human
Embryos?” National Geographic, 19 Oct. 2017,
- “Questions and Answers about CRISPR.” Broad Institute, 21 Aug. 2017,
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