Akash Singh, Banaras Hindu University
We’ve discovered the structure of DNA, the blueprint for life, constructed computers to read it, and mastered the power to rewrite it in the last 70 years. With real-time genomic sequencing and new-generation mRNA vaccinations, gene technologies have allowed us to track and combat COVID-19 faster than any other outbreak in history. And scientists believe we’re on the verge of accomplishing even more, including healing incurable diseases which are referred to as the upcoming age of limitless biohacking.
CRISPRs were discovered in E. coli in 1987 by Yoshizumi Ishino and his team. It wasn’t until George Church, Jennifer Doudna, Emmanuelle Charpentier, and Feng Zhang harnessed it as a tool to edit specific areas of genomes in 2012 that George Church, Jennifer Doudna, Emmanuelle Charpentier, and Feng Zhang used it as a tool to modify targeted regions of genomes. CRISPR was selected as Breakthrough of the Year in 2015 by Science because of its potential to revolutionize gene editing.
What is CRISPR-Cas9?
CRISPRs, or Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, are repeating DNA sequences found in the genomes of prokaryotes like bacteria and archaea. A: CRISPR “spacer” sequences are translated into short RNA sequences (referred to as “CRISPR RNAs” or “crRNAs”) that guide the system to DNA sequences that match. When the target DNA is located, Cas9, one of the CRISPR system’s enzymes, latches to it and chops it, turning off the targeted gene.
Bacteria are always at odds with viruses, according to Doudna, and have evolved a highly sophisticated immune system to seek out and destroy viral invaders by looking for their genetic signature. The viral sequence can be snipped in the coding by a protein known as CAS9. This is lethal to a virus. The double-stranded DNA helix will, however, sew itself back together in humans and other species. As a result, genes might be deleted or even replaced totally with a new sequence.
What is genetic engineering?
You’re made up of trillions of cells that are constantly dying and reborn. Almost all of them have a billion-letter blueprint called deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA. This DNA is copied and re-encoded as your cells proliferate and replace themselves. However, only the portions of the cell that are relevant to that cell, known as genes, turn on. All multicellular life on Earth is powered by this magnificent, if imperfect, engine. When DNA copies itself, it makes mistakes, which are referred to as “mutations.” The majority of them have little impact on how things work. However, some can cause issues and, on rare occasions, can improve matters.
However, humans now have the ability to modify DNA directly in both live people (somatic editing) and unborn embryos (known as germline editing). This second type of editing is the most straightforward technique to ensure that DNA modifications reach every cell in the body. However, any changes will be permanent and, more importantly, will be passed down to future generations, raising the stakes even higher. Human germline editing is now prohibited in almost every country because researchers agree that the technology is not yet mature enough to perform it safely.
Limitless Biohacking:
In his drive to be the first to “cross the germline” and engineer humans, Dr He Jiankui, who has been imprisoned for three years and whose research has been widely criticized as renegade “Frankenstein” science, fabricated tests, kept doctors in the dark, and evaded ethics boards. He wasn’t the first person to cause a stir at a genetic engineering symposium. An amateur “biohacker” famously injected himself with changed DNA in the middle of a conversation in the hopes of becoming more muscular (it didn’t). Glow-in-the-dark rabbits, malaria-resistant mosquitoes, and high-yield crops (GMOs) are all making headlines these days- thus paving way for limitless biohacking in the true sense.
Greg Neely has already used gene editing in his lab at the University of Sydney to reduce pain in mice, inhibit jellyfish venom from harming humans, and even lengthen the lives of fruit flies. His lab is also looking for genes that could reduce or even stop the ageing process. They even succeeded in increasing the life span of fruit flies from 80 to 120 days.
Some IVF clinics around the world now allow parents to choose their child’s sex and eye colour, and other companies are working on developing genetic profiles for embryos.
What can go wrong for humanity?
While the biohacking techniques are less complicated, altering DNA is still difficult. For one reason, just as we are more than our genetics, the portions of us that are truly genetic are rarely reduced to a single gene. They are frequently the result of multiple factors interacting in ways we don’t fully comprehend. More than 700 genes, for example, determine height. There are a dozen factors that influence eye colour, and that’s before we consider attributes like intelligence (and breakdancing prowess).
If we employ this biohacking technology, we will begin to disrupt the principles of natural selection that have moulded life for the previous four billion years and replace them with “laws of truly intelligent design,” as a historian and futurist Yuval Noah Harari writes in his book Sapiens.
Regulation and Risk assessment:
Even when organ donation first began, it was not without flaws, but it saved lives. Arthur C. Clarke had once said, “We don’t know enough about it yet, but it’s not incomprehensible magic.” The author of Hacking Darwin, Jamie Metzl famously said, “We will reach a point where we know enough, we know it’s safe, or worth the risk.” Some people have also put up a claim that enforcing a prohibition on human germline modification, similar to the current nuclear weapons bans, is of necessity. Gene editing, according to Metzl, is as powerful and dangerous as nuclear weapons but how would you enforce a prohibition on this? Consider what might happen if one country decided to go rogue and modify the human genome. Would others invade to put a stop to limitless biohacking?
Also read: The relationship between Hepatitis C and Psoriasis
References:
1. Groch, S. (2021, July 4). Are designer babies and supersoldiers inevitable? The Sydney Morning Herald. https://www.smh.com.au/national/curing-cancer-designer-babies-supersoldiers-how-will-gene-editing-change-us-20210511-p57qqt.html
2. Astronauts show how CRISPR gene editing works in space. (n.d.). Retrieved July 5, 2021, from https://news.yahoo.com/crispr-gene-editing-in-space-212255225.html
About author:
Akash Singh is a first-year masters student of Biochemistry at Banaras Hindu University. He plans to pursue a PhD in the future and teach the young minds of the country.
Social media links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akash-singh-82b5811a2/
Publications:
- https://vidwaanforever.com/2021/06/a-new-period-invention-a-novel-thread-device-for-uti-detection/
- https://vidwaanforever.com/2021/06/the-fall-of-insecta-apocalyptic-consequences-for-humanitys-survival/
- https://vidwaanforever.com/2021/06/covaxin-vs-covishield-the-corona-vaccines-in-india/
- The Corrosion Prediction from the Corrosion Product Performance
- Nitrogen Resilience in Waterlogged Soybean plants
- Cell Senescence in Type II Diabetes: Therapeutic Potential
- Transgene-Free Canker-Resistant Citrus sinensis with Cas12/RNP
- AI Literacy in Early Childhood Education: Challenges and Opportunities
Breast-Tumour Stiffness Directs Bone Metastasis Through Mechanical Conditioning Maintenance
Saptaparna Dasgupta, Bennett University The intermediate and transitory reaction of breast-tumour stiffness to pathological rigidity has been carefully investigated in their native microwave environment. However, it remains unclear how the main phenotypes of stiffness caused by the cancer cell are stained in vivo over a while. Certain mechanisms are associated based on how fibrotic-like matrix […]