I think the thing that's
amazing about science
and about biology for me
is that there's always more
to be discovered, and every
time we feel like we've figured
something out, it seems to
open up several more questions.
(gentle percussive music)
Scientists have
appreciated for a long time
that once we understood
the DNA sequence in cells,
if we had a tool that would
allow easy manipulation
of that sequence, that that would be
a very powerful kind of technology.
(gentle percussive music)
CRISPR is a technology
for changing the sequence
of DNA in cells in a precise
fashion to correct mutations
that might otherwise cause disease.
It's going to enable a
lot of science to be done
that was impossible to do in the past.
So the way the CRISPR technology works is
by the action of a protein
called Cas9 that functions
like a molecular scalpel for DNA.
The CRISPR Cas9 system
has an amazing ability
to recognize a particular DNA
sequence in a cell that may be
malfunctioning, and then
disable it by cutting the DNA.
We call this gene
editing, and we can use it
to disable or repair a
mutated part of the gene,
which may be causing disease.
For Cas9 to find the malfunctioning DNA,
we attach it to an RNA sequence
that matches the DNA
sequence we want to edit.
Then we put this RNA Cas9
combination into the cell.
It finds the mutant DNA and
uses the chemical reaction
to cut the DNA strand right at the spot
where it's malfunctioning.
After that, we can sometimes
insert the correct version
of the gene for the cell
to work properly again.
It's a very exciting
technology that's going to do
a lot of good in human
society and for human health.
It stretches from human therapeutics
to agricultural applications
to thinking about
how do we make better biofuels.
These would be incredible
outcomes, I think,
of using this kind of
technology in the future.
(gentle percussive music)
