The Legend of CRISPR: Long Ago and Far Away a Young Prokaryote...

Sort of a fairytale…

Almost everything about CRISPR sounds magical, even its origins. Some of the first living organisms, are attacked by viruses, few survive. Some evolve an ability that allows them to snip the RNA out of the virus and hold on to it protecting themselves from future attacks. If they are attacked by the virus again, they can change the genetics of the virus, ending the threat. Thousands of years later, humans learn this secret and figure out how to use it save the lives of others.

This week I read that a child that had virtually no chance of survival, seems to have been saved by this technology. They call the kid KJ, and if it worked for him they might be able to save thousands or even millions of other lives. The speficific disease is called AADC deficiency and it is a rare genetic disorder that affects the brain’s ability to produce dopamine and serotonin. But there is good reason to believe the same techniques could be used to treat other diseases as well.

That is not even the only use for CRISPR. Here is a python library used to help identify similar looking plants potentially to help identify invasive species more reliably. I am sure there will be countless other uses for this technology. If you are interested in exploring more with python, here is a link to the DepMap portal. It is a great resource for exploring CRISPR in the context of cancer research. A great primer on Bioinformatics is the Biopython library