Cell and Gene Therapy

Synthetic Biology and CRISPR Technology

Synthetic Biology is one of the emerging field of research that can be broadly described as the design and construction of novel artificial biological pathways, organisms or devices or the redesigning of existing natural biological systems. 

CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) Technology is one of the most powerful yet simple tool for genome editing. It helps and allows researchers to easily alter DNA sequences and modify gene functions. It has many potential applications that include correcting genetic disorders, treating and preventing the spread of diseases and improving crops. CRISPR popularly used as CRISPR-Cas9 where CRISPRs are specialized stretches of DNA and Cas9 is the protein which is an enzyme that acts like a pair of molecular scissors, capable of cutting DNA strands. The promise of CRISPR technology however raises ethical concerns as it is not 100% efficient. But the development of CRISPR-Cas9 has revolutionised the synthetic biology industry in today’s world, being a simple and effective gene editing tool.