Genetics and Genomics Commons^™

Crispr/Cas9 Genome Editing System And Its Use In Infectious Disease, Dustin Daws

Thinking Matters Symposium Archive

Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) is an exciting new genetic engineering technology that was found in the chromosomes of certain bacteria and archaea. Bacteriophage are viruses that insert their DNA and hijack the host cell’s machinery to make new phage that can go on to infect new cells. Some microorganisms use CRISPR as a defense mechanism to disrupt the bacteriophage DNA after it is inserted into the cell. CRISPR/Cas9 uses genome editing as a means to alter very specific sections of a foreign genome. CRISPR works with a RNA-guided DNA endonuclease called Cas9. This enzyme can locate and …