Crispr for genetic engineering

From the New York Times:

A Powerful New Way to Edit DNA
By ANDREW POLLACK    MARCH 3, 2014

... In the past year or so, researchers have discovered that the bacterial system can be harnessed to make precise changes to the DNA of humans, as well as other animals and plants. 

This means a genome can be edited, much as a writer might change words or fix spelling errors. It allows “customizing the genome of any cell or any species at will,” said Charles Gersbach, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Duke University. 

Already the molecular system, known as Crispr, is being used to make genetically engineered laboratory animals more easily than could be done before, with changes in multiple genes. Scientists in China recently made monkeys with changes in two genes. 

Scientists hope Crispr might also be used for genomic surgery, as it were, to correct errant genes that cause disease. Working in a laboratory — not, as yet, in actual humans — researchers at the Hubrecht Institute in the Netherlands showed they could fix a mutation that causes cystic fibrosis. 

But even as it is stirring excitement, Crispr is raising profound questions. Like other technologies that once wowed scientists — like gene therapy, stem cells and RNA interference — it will undoubtedly encounter setbacks before it can be used to help patients. 

It is already known, for instance, that Crispr can sometimes change genes other than the intended ones. That could lead to unwanted side effects.

The technique is also raising ethical issues. The ease of creating genetically altered monkeys and rodents could lead to more animal experimentation. And the technique of altering genes in their embryos could conceivably work with human embryos as well, raising the specter of so-called designer babies.

This is a big deal, but a couple of cautions:

-- Nothing moves very fast anymore in human medicine, so  don't expect huge changes real soon now.

-- This could be very useful for fixing one bad gene problems, but positive traits tend to be the results of lots of genes interacting, which raises all sorts of questions.