StemCell Therapy

Hyderabad: Creating super humans through genetic mutations is a red line that should not be crossed, said Prof. Virjinijus Siksnys, the biochemist who developed the gene-editing tool CRISPR, here on Friday.

CRISPR is a very powerful technology and people are now just testing boundaries of this technology. Scientists, in general, agree that you can use the gene-editing tool to correct mutations to cure diseases. But, improving humans is a Pandoras Box, which should be avoided, he said.

Prof Sriksnys, a biochemist from Institute of Biotechnology, Vilnius University, Lithuania, while delivering Dr Manohar VN Shirodkar Memorial Lecture of Telangana Academy of Sciences (TAS) at IICT, said there was a definite need for regulatory authorities from the US and European Union to come together and put in place a framework for the CRISPR technology.

Many discussions are ongoing on having regulations in the US and EU. Hopefully, in the coming few years, there will be some regulations in place. CRISPR is a tool that can be used for different applications and it depends on us on how we are going to use it, he said.

CRISPR enables geneticists to edit parts of the genome by removing and adding or altering sections of the DNA sequence. I believe such mutations can be introduced in plants very quickly. Usually, it takes a long time to develop better plant varieties. But, CRISPR technology can help speed up the process of generating better plant varieties, he said.

Senior office-bearers of TAS including its president Prof K Narasimha Reddy, former president Dr CH Mohan Rao, IICT Director S Chandrasekhar, CCMB Director RK Mishra and students from different schools were present.

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'Genetic mutations must be regulated' - Telangana Today

This entry was posted on January 26, 2020 at 4:44 am and is filed under Genetics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |