So many people have heard about CRISPR.
CRISPR is actually an acronym which stands
for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short
Palindromic Repeats; very scientificy, very
complex.
What CRISPR is biologically, is a DNA-encoded,
RNA-mediated, DNA-targeting immune system
that enables bacteria to survive virus attack
by cutting their DNA.
That's CRISPR in a nutshell in biology.
If you go into CRISPR the technology, CRISPR
technology is repackaging the biology of CRISPR-Cas
systems in bacteria and turning into a technology,
a tool, whereby you have an enzyme called
Cas9 - a pair of scissors, a molecular scalpel,
a knife, right - that can come in and strategically,
and precisely, and accurately, enable you
to cut DNA.
Like any molecular scalpel - if you imagine
like a razor blade cutting your skin - when
you cut DNA, when you cut your skin, you're
going to repair it.
And that's why it's called genome editing,
because by using CRISPR to cut and slice DNA
at the precise location of your choosing,
you trigger, you behove nature to use natural
DNA repair pathways to repair the site of
cleavage precisely, and in doing so you generate
a mutation exactly at the site of cleavage.
People, in the last three and half years,
have been able to use this DNA cut and repair
technology to alter, edit, rewrite, or change
the genetic content of almost any organism
you can think of on planet earth.
In a nutshell, CRISPR has been able to revolutionize,
not just science and the business, but society
as a whole, because the products of that science,
the products of the research, the products
of those companies are impacting us as patients,
us a consumers of ag and food products.
It has had a ubiquitous impact on a very short
timeline
across many parts of consumers' and patients' lives.
