• Eiri@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    CRISPR makes gene editing easier, but unless you’ve got a way to deliver it to every cell, it won’t do much unless you’re targeting such a small number of cells that it’s realistic to have a technician physically inject it into a cell.

    That would work for an embryo. Ignoring the plethora of ethical issues and the lack of data on long-term effects, it would probably be pretty easy for a scientist to make the change in an embryo and then go through the normal in-vitro fertilization procedure.

    For a whole organism, though, it’s more difficult. One obvious solution is a specially modified virus, and that’s under research.

    There’s a lot of stuff here if you want to dive deep:

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7356196/#sec3-biomolecules-10-00839title

    • CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      One of the best explanations of this and an actual demonstration of the technology to do this was done In this video on curing lactose intolerance (not permanently).

      Whats even crazier is that this video was published 6 years ago and the paper you referenced is 4 years old. With the speed that genetics research is going, both of these are certainly very outdated resources even if the background is mostly the same.

      • Eiri@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        That’s pretty impressive. I hadn’t even thought oral treatments were possible!

        It’s amazing.