🧬 Custom Babies, Human Longevity, & Prime Editing, Oh My🧬
At first glance, they have nothing in common, but a new technology has allowed for huge leaps forward in both fields.
Prime Editing has the power to improve the lives of 20% of the world 🌎 !
Imagine a day when you can customize your baby’s eye color 👁 , strength🦾, and height. Or you could get rid of any genetic diseases🩸you have. Soon, these seemingly fictional ideas may be a normal part of life.
As gene editing begins to grow in popularity, new advancements that help achieve genetic engineering goals are becoming increasingly common. Currently, prime editing is on the cutting edge of gene editing techniques, and may be able to replace the current front runner known as “CRISPR.”
CRISPR, or Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat, was found in 1987 by Francis Mojica. It however was not used for gene editing until the discovery of the Cas9 protein in 2005. Since then, there have not been many leaps forward in the field of genetic engineering…until recently.
What is Prime Editing🤔?
First let me get this out the way though. No, Prime Editing is not a way for you to edit your Amazon Prime cart 🛒! 😉
Rather, prime editing is a technology that uses combinations of proteins, known as fusion proteins, to find target sites, or the area that will be edited, and directly write new genetic code that replaces the preexisting DNA.
This method is known as “search-and-replace”🕵️ ️genome editing. Prime editing is compiled of three elements: a prime editing guide RNA (pegRNA), fusion proteins, comprised of a Cas9 H840A nickase fused to a Moloney Murine Leukemia Virus (M-MLV) reverse transcriptase, and a single guide RNA (sgRNA).
The pegRNA has two goals 🥅:
- Identify the part of the DNA that you want to change
- Then replace it with a newly written genetic code.
The fusion protein’s main goal is to split🔪 the strand of DNA in half , resulting in a target strand, which will be edited, and a non-target strand that no longer fulfills a function.
After the target strand is identified, prime editing uses RNA to create new DNA, which matches the sequencing of the current target strand, but also contains the DNA changes applied to the target area.
Importance 🔑
One feature that makes prime editing extremely valuable is its ability to remove any of the 75,000 known mutations that cause inherited disease in humans.
This means that if it is deemed ethical, and commercial use was allowed, it would significantly improve the quality of life for ~1.6 billion people. That’s 20% of the world who suffer from inherited genetic diseases.
Moreover, it is much safer compared to other existing genetic editing techniques, such as CRISPR, due to its search and replace editing method. Its precision significantly decreases the chances of unindented mutations. This is because rather than opening all of the DNA, it can select a small region, reducing the possibility of other mutations.
Lastly, innovative technologies, such as prime editing, help better society because they allow for newer and more efficient technologies to emerge. Evidently, prime editing incorporates technology used to develop CRISPR. Although they share traits, CRISPR and prime editing have many differences.
Prime Editing VS CRISPR 🥊
Unlike prime editing, CRISPR does not use the search and replace method. Instead, CRISPR cuts both strands ✂️🧬 of DNA and replaces it with new DNA. Prime editing only requires the cutting of one strand which is far safer and lowers the risk of ruining the pre-existing DNA via unwanted insertions, deletions, or other mutations.
Another strong benefit of prime editing is the lack of reliance upon a cell’s division in order to make edits. This is especially useful in cells 🧫 such as nerve cells which are always in G0, a state of mitosis where no cell division occurs.
Unlike CRISPR, prime editing’s effect on editing large spans of DNA is unknown and is currently only proved to be effective on small scales.
Prime Editing & The Future⌛️
Although prime editing seems extremely promising, especially in regards to editing and eliminating inherited diseases, the future of this technology holds much uncertainty. This is not specific to only prime editing though. New technologies, such as CRISPR, undergo years of testing to ensure safety and consistency before they can be used by the general public.
David Liu👨🔬, the creator of prime editing, may have an implicit bias towards his creation and fail to mention the negative aspects of the method resulting in use before it is safe. The technology is extremely new, being only made in late 2019, and may have many unknown negative effects.
If prime editing is proven by independent studies to be safe and effective, this technology will create a new conversation regarding the ethics of gene editing. Knowing that there are almost no complications possible when executing prime editing, the technology may result in more scientists believing that gene editing is indeed ethical.
Although genetically engineering your own child is possible, it is currently a question of ethics rather than science. Prime editing, however, can potentially have a profound impact on the question of ethics and how it relates to genetic engineering.
This may allow for a close future in which genetic diseases will be eradicated, and having a baby will be as easy as shopping on Amazon Prime(I guess they are related😉).
So who knows, maybe by the time I’m an adult and ready for kids, rather than questioning the ethics of gene editing, I will be questioning what color I should make my kids eyes, or whether or not he should be taller than me!
Thank you for reading my article! I hope you learned and laughed along the way. I’m a Sophomore at The Buckley School and am currently an innovator at The Knowledge Society! I would love to hear any feedback about my article, and I encourage you to connect with me on my Linkedin so we can continue the conversation!
