Friday, June 5, 2015

CRISPR Engineering

There is a current Nature Reviews article discussing CRISPR techniques. Just to review the CRISPR cas9 combo is a protein combined with an RNA piece that results in the precise slicing of a double stranded DNA. We demonstrate below:

The RNA is a chimeric combination of RNA which on the one hand attaches to a guides the Cas 9 protein and an RNA that finds the spot on the DS DNA.
The process is somewhat straightforward, albeit a few issues as to just "how" this tool works.
Finally the authors lay out a few applications which we detail below:
I spent some time a few weeks back talking to my grand kids 6th grade class. My final remark was on CRISPRs. They got the point!