Crispr-Cas9 is a program that allows people to change the DNA in living creatures. The first term in its name is an acronym that stands for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats,” which is a description of the genetic basis of the method, and the second part, Cas9, is the name of the protein that makes it work.
How it works is it uses the mechanism our body uses when a virus comes into our body. Our body makes some RNA that connects with the virus DNA, which is then cut by a special protein called Cas9, destroying the DNA. They have figured out a way to use this process to change the area the protein targets and cut a certain part of the DNA. The DNA will try to repair itself, most likely causing some sort of mutations. But the scientists will usually want to be more precise than that. So, they will put a different strand of DNA which connects to the broken ends of the original DNA. (At least, that’s my take on it)
I think that this could help a lot with genetic diseases and similar things, but it’s kind of scary at the same time. With this, they could change anything in people's genetics—and your genetics are pretty much the basis of who you are.
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