CRISPR Archives - Keith Shields

The Pace of Scientific Advancement

The pace with which scientific and technological advances are happening is astounding. In 2014/2015, researchers had just begun to grasp the potential of the CRISPR/Cas9 system to edit genomes (see my previous blog here). The technology allows scientists to cut out pieces of DNA and replace the displaced DNA with a novel strand. This can…

AI and NT: What makes us human?

Two recent developments in science could leave us asking the question, “What does it mean to be human?” First, the October 19 edition of the journal Nature reports on a remarkable computer program that taught itself how to play the ancient game called Go. Programmers set up the algorithms which included the structure and rules…

JCVI-syn3.0

At a biological level, what is the minimal number of genes needed to sustain life in an organism? That is a question that is being asked by a group of scientists who have been engineering the genome of the bacteria known as Mycoplasma mycoides. For a few years, the team has been taking genes out and…

CRISPR

CRISPR is a relatively new term that describes new discoveries and new technology in the world of genetics. CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats and refers to short repetitions of base pair sequences in bacterial genomes which naturally occur as part of bacterial genetic defence mechanisms against invading viruses. These CRISPR sequences…