The characteristics or traits 
of every cell or an organism
is defined by the genes that they possess
And this includes both
desirable characteristics and undesirable characteristics
In livestock if we are wanting to introduce a desired trait
or remove an undesirable one
we have a number of strategies available to us
We could look at breeding
we could look at introduction of a new gene
or we could look at modification
of an existing gene
And the beauty with this final approach
is that we are not adding in any new DNA
We are simply changing what already exists
And this final strategy has all become possible through a
fantastic new tool
known as the Genome Editor
The genome of an organism
is the collection of
of all its DNA
all the genes that it possesses
And essentially acts like an instructional manual for that
cell or organism
And each gene within that genome
can essentially be considered as an individual sentence
within that instruction manual
If we change the sentence
we change the meaning of the instruction
and as such we can change the traits that
that, that sentence directs
Genome editors are essentially DNA scissors
that allow us to make
very precise
cuts within the genome
allowing the introduction of changes to the genome
and as such
changes to the traits that a cell or an organism possesses
