• Question: What is CRISPR?

    Asked by anon-253474 to Faith on 21 May 2020. This question was also asked by anon-254317.
    • Photo: Faith Davies

      Faith Davies answered on 21 May 2020:

      Hey! CRISPR is really fun. It’s a pwoerful tool that was invented only about 7 years ago. Actually it wasn’t invented, it was discovered – bacteria use CRISPR as a sort of immune system tool, to stop viruses inserting their DNA into the bacteria’s DNA code. Scientists figured out how it works and found we can use the same tool to edit DNA in human, animal or plant cells. CRISPR is like a pair of scissors that can cut DNA wherever we want.So we can make 2 cuts and remove a bit of DNA – a gene maybe) or we can make a cut and provide an alternative DNA template which the cell uses to ‘heal’ the cut we made. We can use that to cure genetic disease. and to make mice that glow green

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