CRISPR technology in disease testing

CRISP technology in disease testing

This is a very common new technology used in Molecular biology for gene editing and lately for diagnostics. Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) are part of the bacterial immunity system, repetitive sequences that could be used for a variety of actions within a newly formed genome CRISPR-Cas9. After recognizing their repetitive nature, these sequences became highly valuable in the detection of specific locations in the genome where mutations occurred.

Controversy about using this technique for editing babies is possibly true but not recognized ethically. Recent usage in diagnostics is welcomed and highly appreciated, because of its precision and huge possibilities for detecting diseases very fast, accurate and in the simplest possible way.

CRISPR was discovered in archaea, asset of small repetitive sequences of genetic code, separated by foreign sequences, from “invaders”. Repetitive sequences are considered to be genetic memory, capable of detecting and impairing any foreign interruptions. To detect sequences of the specific cause of illness, CRISPR will use RNA sequences matching to required and turned genes off after binding to it. Binding sequences are easy to understand if we learn about specific bases in DNA/RNA code and how they fit each other. This is a foundation for understanding processes and technologies as CRISPR and its huge potential. Another advantage of this technology is a lack of specific enzyme binding, which was a necessity when other experiments of the same type were used. Time-effective, nonnecessity for enzymes, library with gRNA sequences developed by scientists and available any time, the possibility for cutting and overall editing genes..all these advantages open up a new era in diagnostics using CRISPR technologies.

Very soon, CRISPR technologies will be used for detecting specific RNA sequences originated form viruses and will be able to cut those sequences and represent them in visible test form, "on a test stick" as it is visible on a pregnancy test. This way we will be aware of any common disease in the shortest period, which will further lead to faster and more effective therapy/succes for cure.

"SHERLOCK is relatively inexpensive to develop, and you can turn it into a paper strip test" (Feng Zhang-molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard).