CRISPR: The Most Controversial Medicine on the Planet

By: Rory Cox, Class II

photo credit: pixabay

The world of medicine is changing more than ever as technological advancements continue to push the boundaries of what is possible. With the direct impacts these technologies have on our lives, it is important to understand them as they develop. Specifically, one of the most promising and controversial pieces of technology in the medical field today is CRISPR. But what is CRISPR and what makes it so controversial?

What is CRISPR and How Does it work?

CRISPR, (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats), is a type of medical technology that enables doctors and scientists to edit genes, removing them from and adding them to living organisms. According to the Cleveland Clinic, CRISPR mostly uses a protein called Cas-9, which can act as a pair of molecular scissors. Scientists utilize it to target specific genes and eliminate them from DNA code. Cas-9 can also be used to add genetic material, in other words, acting like the messenger pigeon of the DNA world. All the scientists have to do is provide the genes and Cas-9 drops it off at its destination. As reported by the same source, CRISPR uses these things called “spacers” that go along with the genetic material that allow it to adapt to the organism which is being edited.

How was CRISPR discovered?

In 1987, Dr. Yoshuzumi Ishino and his team were conducting research on the Iap gene in E. Coli to better understand how it functioned. While doing so, according to the Journal of Bacteriology, Dr. Ishino discovered unique, repeating sequences of DNA within the gene. This was key to the foundation of CRISPR as they had discovered symmetrical, easy to work with pieces of DNA that could be coded. Coding is giving the DNA a set of instructions to follow once it is inside the specific area within a person's body that scientists want to alter.  Following this in 2007, a scientist named Francisco Mojica was experimenting with the elements of CRISPRs, learning about what role they served in bacteria, and saw an opportunity to turn CRISPRs into something phenomenal. The Broad Institute wrote about his idea, saying he proposed that the technology could be used to defend against invading viruses. Dr. Mojica demonstrated that spacers can be used as memory banks which are used to recognize incoming viruses and act as a blueprint for the body to use to get rid of them. Dr. Mojica's work paved the way in the scientific community for CRISPR’s evolution into a gene editing tool. But how can it be used now and in the near future?

How Can CRISPR Be Used?

Due to heavy experimentation, scientists have found many ways to apply CRISPR. In 2024, a study was conducted by the University of Amsterdam, according to BBC news, where scientists were able to utilize CRISPR technology, and slice HIV DNA out of cells, meaning that the sliced HIV cells were no longer able to produce more copies of itself within other cells. This killed all of the HIV within a small sample size of cells. While this was just an experiment, it was and still is a massive win in the medical world because of how easily CRISPR technology eradicated HIV DNA. The president of the TBLS Science Club, Christina Dong, Class II, explained another potential use of CRISPR. “CRISPR technology has been used to genetically modify mosquitoes, changing them from females to males. There are a lot of ethical concerns around this because these mosquitoes will eventually not be able to repopulate,” she said. “However, female mosquitoes spread Malaria which is a very deadly disease.” As stated by the World Health Organization, hundreds of thousands of lives are lost in countries where resources to treat Malaria are essentially non-existent. CRISPR has the potential to greatly reduce these deaths. However, Scientists are still very unsure about the ethical consequences of CRISPR, and whether or not the dangers outweigh the benefits.

The Ethics of CRISPR

The ethics of CRISPR are quite unclear because, as a fairly new technology, there haven’t been any lines drawn thus far. Dong stated that “in theory it should work (on human DNA), the question is whether or not we should use it, and how will this affect human beings long term. The reason we haven’t done it more is because we don’t know how it will affect humans, babies and even animals long term.” The fact that we haven’t tested the lasting effects of CRISPR on humans leaves many unanswered questions of what could happen to an edited human.

 Another thing to consider is consent. In 2018, Chinese scientist Jiankui He was able to use CRISPR to edit a set of twins in the womb to be HIV resistant, and it worked. However, many scientists thought it was unethical to edit the children as they couldn’t consent to DNA modification and since it hasn’t been properly simulated, they could face a plethora of side effects far into the future. Dr. He ended up being jailed for 3 years because of the modifications to the children. Additionally, we do not know how the editing process affects multiple generations. While one or two generations may prosper from inheriting edited genes, their kids might suddenly face health complications or other negative effects from this editing.

Dong also noted that, “A lot of people want (in theory) to make ‘designer babies.”  This is where people modify the genes of their children before they are born so that they possess what are, in their eyes, desirable physical and mental traits. These babies can also have their blood type modified, which is useful because if a person has blood type Ab, referred to as golden blood, they can donate their blood to any blood type and receive transfusions from anyone. This could greatly reduce variation in the human race, and due to the high cost of creating a “designer baby,” further separate the wealthy from the poor. CRISPR also allows for children to be enhanced with DNA that would make them stronger and push the boundaries of human athleticism, which leads to the concept of super soldiers. A super soldier is a person with enhanced “ideal” human qualities, such as unrealistic levels of athleticism or strong military intelligence. Yet super soldiers contain their own unique set of ethical concerns, and potential consequences, with the ability to transform modern warfare.

What We Should Expect in the Future

Ultimately, CRISPR can be used for good, such as eradicating inherited diseases or decreasing the prevalence of fatal illnesses like Malaria. On the other hand, if there aren’t parameters set around the use of this technology, we could see it taken advantage of in harmful ways. Despite all this, CRISPR is still in its infancy and, while it continues to be developed each day, there is still much we do not know about the potential impacts it will have on our world, and our lives.