Crispy CRISPRs and Gene Editing: Part 1

Tenth episode of Petri Dish! Going to be honest, didn't think we'd make it this long. Sean and Nathan have a special guest for this episode, Andrei Daye. He's a dude who has read some stuff about CRISPR-Cas9 and how it is a --r e v o l u t i o n a r y-- technology, and wanted to know more! In case you hadn't heard, CRISPR-Cas9 is the hot new way to genetically modify DNA, and has been used in labs for all sorts of research including the controversial CRISPR-ing of those twins in China!

But this episode (part 1 of 2) is about the nitty gritty of how CRISPR works and what its limitations are. Something Sean didn't get to go into but wanted to (Nathan rushed him) was that there are other members of the Cas endonuclease family that are proving to be very useful, like Cpf1, Cas3, Cas13 -- not to mention that Cas9 from different bacterial species can have different properties! So much stuff to know!

 

References:

https://www.nature.com/articles/cr201776

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/powerful-crispr-cousin-accidentally-mutates-rna-while-editing-dna-target

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-06129-w

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05477-x

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-40181-w