Crispr is a new method for editing genes primarily discovered by a Harvard Medical School Geneticist named Dr. George Church. In the 1990's Dr. Jay Fishman was working with pig cells with attempts to get pig organs transplanted in to humans. They want to try and fix the problem of thousands of people dying each year waiting for a heart, liver or lung transplant. He found that there are viral genes in pig DNA that attack human genes, not allowing the transplant to be successful. These viral cells are called "PERVs" cells and it seemed impossible to get rid of these cells. Dr. Fishman asked Dr. Church to attempt to alter these PERV genes with Crispr. Church found that there were 62 pig genes that needed to be altered but all of them came from a single ancestor. Therefore, he only needed on Cripsr gene to alter all 62 genes. After engineering a new set of genes to attack the viral pig genes, they were implemented into the pig DNA and 2 weeks later they had altered viral pig genes. Now Church and his team are experimenting with 25 genes to reduce the risk of rejection of pig organs by altering the human immune system with molecules on the pig cells. This experiment is not yet published but it will be the next step in the direction for pig organs being used as transplants for humans.
I found this article very interesting because I am studying to become a Physicians Assistant and I have seen many different patients who needed transplants. Those with failing organs are in a lot of pain and it is extremely hard to know there are people that could be helped with a transplant of a new organ but there are not available organs for them. With this new science, hopefully at some point those individuals will not need to wait on a waiting-list for a new organ and can instead, receive one from a pig that will work just as well.
Here is another website explaining more about the Crispr gene editing.
This article is very interesting because I did not know pig organs can be used for people who need transplants. Science has come a long way and I do hope this will be the future since those waiting-lists can be long and people don't have that long to wait for the organ. I do hope this will be the future
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