Gene Editing

Gene editing was one of the very popular topics for science fiction writers back in the day. But We humans have been engineering life for thousands of years, through selective breeding, we recreated plants and animals based on their more desirable traits. Even though we knew that the process worked we never really understood how it worked until we discovered what we call the DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid).

The molecule of the DNA which has information encoded in its structure educated us upon how all living organisms have some similar and different traits. If these instructions in the DNA are changed, then you change the being carrying it. So as soon as the DNA was discovered, scientists tried to fiddle with it. Till the 1980s these gene modification experiments were carried out only on plants and limited animals such as mice. After the 1980s this technology was used commercially for agriculture and some for humans. The real human engineering began in the 1990s but only to treat maternal infertility.

But until recently gene editing was very expensive, this has now changed with the revolutionary new technology –CRISPR. This shrunk the cost of gene editing by 99% and had proven to be easier and faster. This new technology has the potential to change humans forever (ending disease, designer babies, and eternal youth). The entire topic of CRISPR deserves a blog of its own but in short, it allows you to give the cell you want to edit a copy of the DNA you wish to modify it into. This technology can also let you switch on and off certain genes, you wish or don’t wish to keep.

This technology has been tried and tested worldwide for even battling diseases such as HIV and lung cancer. But the making of designer babies has been proved to be only 90% positive in most of the labs. But even if it is possible once started this technology can never be stopped. People could change anything they wish in their bodies like increase metabolism, supreme intelligence, impeccable eyesight, muscular build, eternal life, etc. in the future we could also edit humans to cope with the alien environments on other planets or give them gills to survive in water…the list goes on and on. At this point all scientists need is to convince a smart billionaire to make gene editing their next problem to solve.