CRISPR-Cas9

The method Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats – CRISPR Associated Proteins 9 (short = CRISPR Cas9, pronounced “crisper”) is a new gene editing method used in molecular biology.

• Cas9 is a protein which is able to cut DNA strands.
• CRISPR are short segments of repeating DNA.
• CRISPR-Cas9 is a molecule group that cuts genes out of an DNA strand.

It functions as a genome editing tool which helps scientists to to slice the DNA fragment of interest and introduce it into a vector (plasmid). This DNA fragment can be chosen precisely by means of restriction enzymes that can cleave a DNA sequence at a specific site.

CRISPR-Cas9 process

This method could actually produce so called “designer babies”, as CRISPR-Cas9 allows scientists to remove “bad” genes and replace them with “good” genes & create genetically altered embryos which include or exclude certain characteristics.