Splice Of Life

  SPLICE OF LIFE

Is Genetic Splicing Possible?


I wouldn't call it a stretch to say that anyone reading this blog has seen the movie Jurassic World. It’s one of the highest-grossing films to ever exist. Now, most people will associate this achievement with the film’s stellar action and amazing computer-generated effects. But that isn’t all that the film had to make it stand out, you see while most people didn’t realize it, this film introduced most of us to the brave and up-incoming world of genetic splicing. But do we still have any idea what gene splicing is and if it is possible in this day and age?


The Infamous Genetically Modified Dinosaur


Instructions For What?

Okay so to fully understand what genetic splicing is we need to first know what genomes are. The cells in our bodies contain our genome, these genes are comprised of many strands of our DNA. Now you might be asking what is DNA, well, DNA is the instructions that our body follows. Still not getting it? That’s okay. We get our DNA from our parents, we get certain aspects of our father's DNA and Certain aspects of our mother's DNA. This process dictates many important parts of our lives, like our sex, the color of our skin, and even to some extent our personalities. This video by The Royal Society provides great insight into DNA and will make it even easier to understand. But what does this have to do with gene splicing?



Can I Make Myself Smarter?

Before we get into genetic splicing we must know what genetic editing is. It’s pretty much what it sounds like; genetic editing is changing a living organism's genetic code. But why and how? The answer to the why is much simpler than you’d expect. Why not? Think of the possibilities, genetic editing is being used to combat many diseases and disabilities in not just animals but also humans.

But how is it done you might be asking? It’s done using a very specific technology called CRISPR. Scientists researching the human body discovered that whenever a viral strain or extra-terrestrial strand of DNA enters our body, it releases a defense mechanism. This defense mechanism is a few strands of DNA bonded with a protein, which is released by a bacteria. It locates the threat and then tries to neutralize it. It does this by disassembling whatever evil strain enters our body, hence making it harmless.


Lines from the book of life


What the crisper technology does is that it makes this defense mechanism target the strands of DNA already present within our body. Once the bacteria locates the targeted strand of DNA it disassembles a part of it, hence disabling it. After this, our body’s natural healing properties take over and try to repair the broken strands of DNA. This results in either better combinations of DNA or mutations, both can have either positive or negative effects.

This Video by the Mcgovern Institute goes into further detail about CRISPR technology and provides a visual representation: https://youtu.be/2pp17E4E-O8



Mix And Match.

Now that we know what gene editing is, we can now discuss what gene splicing is. Genetic splicing is basically a subgenre of genetic editing. This is a process where we take DNA or RNA from one source(organism) and combine it with the DNA or RNA from another source(organism). We do this again using CRISPR technology but instead of letting the DNA fix itself, we combine it with another DNA strand that is under our control via either attachment or insertion. The purposes for gene splicing are vast, we can use it to give one organism the traits of others, like giving a rat the healing prowess of a lizard or creating a human and rat hybrid, or creating a genetically modified dinosaur. Recently one of the uses of gene splicing was trying to fix muscle loss in elderly humans as said in a research paper by Geoffrey Goldspink.


What we learn from this is that gene splicing isn’t only possible, we’ve actually been doing it for years. This article by Rachel E. Gross covers this topic in relation to Jurassic world.


The whole concept of genetic splicing is one that has a significant moral and ethical dilemma associated with it. Let’s take Jurassic world as an example. In this film, genetic splicing is used to make an attraction for a park. While the purpose of the film was fairly tame, it could have also just as effectively been used to create something that’s basically a bioweapon. They created a creature that caused millions in property damage and ended up getting a lot of people killed. Not only that they ended up messing with nature, by disrupting the food chain. Inherently these are things that can result from gene splicing. But gene splicing can also yield positive results Like the example I gave, it is being used to try to find cures for many diseases and disabilities that people face on a daily basis.


All in all, gene splicing is very possible, and while many people are against it because of the many implications it can have, I personally think it is a necessary step in modern biology, one that brings us closer to a perfect lifestyle.



Work Cited

Gapinske, M., Luu, A., Winter, J. et al. CRISPR-SKIP: programmable gene splicing with single base editors. Genome Biol 19, 107 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13059-018-1482-5 

Jurassic World's sketchy science: How impossible would it be to splice dinosaur DNA with other animals'? (slate.com)

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