Yes but the CRISPR engine is passed on to offspring which raises massive ethical questions.
As I understand it (and hopefully I'm not way off base here) there is a technique that creates a "gene drive" which is kinda like an SDK that is inserted into the patients genome which improves the efficacy of CRISPR.
This code finds its way into the gametes which is then passed on to children. The children did not ask for this SDK, but now they have it and it potentially becomes immortal in human DNA.
On the one hand, cool: the SDK is there and possibly makes it even easier to alter DNA>
On the other hand, holy shit: there's a ticking timebomb in the populations DNA now.
The really great thing about us knowing how to read and edit genes now, is that if that happened we would notice and could switch it off. The stuff we want to wipe out using gene drives — e.g. Malaria — can’t.
There are things to worry about with cheap gene engineering, but that particular possibility won’t affect us.
As I understand it (and hopefully I'm not way off base here) there is a technique that creates a "gene drive" which is kinda like an SDK that is inserted into the patients genome which improves the efficacy of CRISPR.
This code finds its way into the gametes which is then passed on to children. The children did not ask for this SDK, but now they have it and it potentially becomes immortal in human DNA.
On the one hand, cool: the SDK is there and possibly makes it even easier to alter DNA>
On the other hand, holy shit: there's a ticking timebomb in the populations DNA now.
It's called CRISPR-cas9:
https://wyss.harvard.edu/media-post/crispr-cas9-gene-drives/
https://scicomm2020.wordpress.com/2020/02/24/controversial-g...