Can Genetic Engineering Help Us In the Fight Against COVID19

ninth grade i was invited to this

biology conference at my school and i

was really excited about attending it

because i got to skip

all my classes and they gave us free

pizza for lunch heck yeah

now in one of the presentations about

the study of diseases one student from

the audience asked

why do scientists try to cure rare

diseases more than common diseases

and to that the lecturer said well i

guess i don’t really know

the thing about common diseases is that

there are so many

factors that influence the final result

some can include genetics

diet or maybe something no one knows

about

yet and i emphasize yet because that’s

what science is about right guys

it’s about discovering and testing and

innovating and now

especially during the age of technology

the 21st century

the power of science has been more

important than ever

there is a deathly pandemic of sars kobe

2 that has taken over our lives

and has made life a lot more boring than

it usually is

but what if i told you that your life

will be able to get back to the normal

amount of boring it was

and if your life wasn’t that boring

during your pandemic that’s up to you

but how well a vaccine is coming but

also a new technology that will be able

to detect coping 19

faster and cheaper the super cool thing

is that this technology that i want to

talk to you guys about today

is already being retailed across the

nation

but let’s backtrack and let me introduce

you to how it all started

with the discovery of crispr now many of

you might have heard the name

crisper before what is it not a new lace

chip flavor

although it definitely should be crisper

is short for clustered regularly

interspaced short palindromic repeats

quite a mouthful i know but that’s what

i’m here for so let’s break it down

according to quantum magazine the

discovery of christopher started in 1987

when a few scientists from osaka

university in japan found something

peculiar

they looked at a specific gene a single

unit of heredity something we get from

both our mom

and our dad and this specific gene the

iaf gene was from the gut of an e coli

microbe

microbe being tiny living things that

are everywhere

and yes everywhere under your bed in

your mouth

i think you just followed one so when

the scientists sequence the dna

the genetic material that makes us who

we are and its surroundings

they expect it to find proteins

molecules that sped up chemical

reactions functioning like a light

switch

on the legs on transcription or copying

of our body’s genetic material into a

piece of rna

a squiggly line also made out of genetic

material that primarily helps make

proteins occurs

but when that light is off this process

stops

however what the scientists found was

that near the ef can make five

identical segments of dna unique spacers

which are 32

random dna base blocks so imagine 32

random lego blocks piling up on each

other

and a bunch of jeans which they dubbed

cash genes

now if anyone likes hamburgers i know i

do

i think i may have an easier way of

explaining this concept

imagine a sandwich filled with five

patties which are your short palindromic

repeats

and palindromic is like the word race

car race car is publishing forwards and

backwards just like the dna based blocks

separated with different types of cheese

which is your inter-space

part of crisper and let’s hope the

cheese doesn’t melt

moldy and on the top let’s say there’s

about four-ish olives and the more

all the more olives the better yeah yeah

popular opinion

so after a few years many more

scientists found the same type of

genetic sandwiches like the ones in e

coli

so after a bunch of testing and

hypothesizing

the function of crispr was discovered

okay so the 100 question is what does

crispr do

what scientists found according to the

nature journal 33 years ago

was a defense mechanism by microbes that

would capture small pieces

of dna from invading viruses store that

in those

interspace repeats and if they ever saw

that virus again

they’d cut the virus dna apart making

the bacteria

safe however in the lab it’s a little

different because the purpose is to edit

our body’s genome

almost like a cut and paste function but

in real life

according to the national institutes of

health the two main components

include cas9 a dna cutting protein and a

guide rna

together they locate a specific part of

the genome that we’re trying to find

online that specific target dna sequence

and from there

they have a few options they’ve either

cut the nucleotides

the bases of genetic molecules

deactivating the entire gene

block or induced transcription and

transcription once again

is the copying of our body’s genetic

material into

a easier to create proteins molecule

or they can paste or substitute a new

nucleotide which can lead to preventing

diseases according to the cystic

fibrosis foundation

one base block error in the cftr gene

can be

fixed using crispr cas9 genome editing

another disease that will majorly

benefit is sickle cell disease in which

once again

only one base is mutated forming defects

in the way blood cells are formed

all right let’s switch gears and talk

about genetic engineering and the

context of the problems our world is

facing

right now the code 19 pandemic has

impacted the world on a

massive scale and is arguably the most

destructive virus

of this generation the cases and deaths

have reached new highs

most notably the united states with a

recorded carotid virus death number

of around 320 000 people and

cases of about 17.7 million people

and these numbers are from the 20th of

december so they have definitely

increased one major problem countries

face with the growing infection rate is

a lack of contract tracers

and lack of testing however according to

biological procedures online

sherlock and no not sherlock holmes

although he’s pretty cool too but

sherlock a genetic engineering solution

will be able to detect kobit 19

using crispr cast 13. okay let’s recap a

little

we already know that crispr is the short

interspace repeats in a microorganism

and that cas9 a dna cutting protein is

bound to a guide rna to do so

and once again that guide helps us find

the specific target dna sequence that we

are looking for

cast 13 is a cousin of cast 9 that can

be harnessed to actually detect

human disease but probably early rude

cousin because cast man’s getting

all the attention according to the

mcgovern institute a community of mit

scientists

and microbes and bacteria cast 13 is

also bound

to a guide rna to detect viral rna

and once that viral rna is bound cast 13

starts a process called collateral

cleavage which

means it cuts up any rna segment it

detects

well doesn’t that seem unnecessary what

does cutting up

random rna segments do with anything

well surprisingly this is the meat of

sherlock’s capabilities

so how does sherlock work first

researchers take a sample of a patient

who possibly has

a viral infection then they amplify the

levels of rna in that sample and add

reporters which

are sensitive to cast 13. next many

engineered cast 13s are added into the

sample with

a guide rna to detect that viral rna

and once that viral rna is bound cast 13

starts the process of collateral

cleavage once again

means it cuts up anything in its path

including the reporters

well why the reporters the reporters

being cleared is what actually detects

the virus

each reporter has a unique label and

when caster team cleaves it into two

they create a unique signal which can

help detect

whether a person has a virus or not so

imagine a pregnancy test

well what does a pregnancy test even do

according to the national health service

one

early sign of being pregnant is the

body’s production of the hormone hcg

or human chronic gonadotropin in a

woman’s blood and urine

and when their urine comes in contact

with that specially treated strip

the test detects whether or not hcg was

detected

now this process is very similar to what

happens with the cleaved reporters

once the reporters are sliced they enter

a commercial flow detection system

just like the pregnancy test and

when and if the sample is negative for

that virus

the reporters collect at the first

detection line however if it’s positive

they collect at a different detection

line making a diagnosis very easy

to spot just like the darker red and

therapeutic lines on a pregnancy test

detecting covid19 will be significantly

easier and will start a path of

increased recovery

in our pandemic as i said before and as

i’m saying now

science is amazing we started with an

unknown unidentifiable gene and a random

bacterium

and created it into a certified fruit

ninja warrior

but instead of cutting fruit we’re

cutting jeans

discovery is possible innovation is

always occurring and solutions

will always be created okay so let’s

answer that student’s question

why do scientists try to cure rare

diseases more than common diseases

the lecturer should have said well it’s

because our world is filled with

peculiarities that will one day

be able to cure the deathliest diseases

but until then we just gotta wait

so time time is the answer to her

question and that will be the answer for

our pandemic

as well