Seeker

by Douglas E. Richards

Ella nodded. “I’ve perfected CRISPR-Cas9 to a level that most would find astonishing.” Kagan blew out a long breath. Even without any improvements, the CRISPR-Cas9 system was already astonishing. Its potential to precisely and efficiently modify human genes to order was only first recognized in 2012, and its use had exploded ever since. CRISPR stood for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, and Cas for CRISPR-associated genes. In combination, these elements formed the equivalent of a bacterial immune system. When a virus injected its genetic material into certain bacteria, this system would snip out parts of the invader’s DNA and keep it on file, to help the bacteria recognize and destroy the virus the next time it attacked. Kagan’s knowledge of CRISPR-Cas9 was quite limited, but he knew that what nature had designed to protect bacteria, humanity had co-opted and turned into a powerful tool for reshaping the human genome to its whims.