• Question: At present, what do we have to do in order to achieve a major breakthrough in terms of DNA?

    Asked by anon-200184 to David on 6 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: David Walker-Sünderhauf

      David Walker-Sünderhauf answered on 6 Mar 2019:

      Specific to manipulating and editing DNA:
      The last big breakthrough, the use of super-precise CRISPR-Cas proteins to cut virtually any DNA sequence of choice with great flexibility, actually came without planning to find a gene editing tool: in nature, CRISPR-Cas is a bacterial immune system that they use to protect themselves against their viruses (by chopping up the virus DNA). It was by studying these interactions between bacteria with this immune system and their viruses that scientists like Jennifer Doudna and Emmannuelle Charpentier realised that it would be really handy to purify these proteins/take these immune systems and use them for editing genes and cutting DNA in the lab instead! So for new breakthroughs, it will be important to follow-up on cool, unexpected interactions in nature and see how bacteria and other organisms have come up with ways to cut DNA.

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