Autocorrect is great for our phones. But what about our D-N-A?
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
D-N-A is made of building blocks called bases. These bases spell out the blueprints for our cells! Sometimes, mistakes are made, and the wrong base gets swapped in. This changes the meaning of the D-N-A. The same way a wrong letter can change a word.
So how do we correct these misspellings?
Perhaps you’ve heard of the genetic engineering technique CRISPR. CRISPR uses a guidance system to edit DNA. It’s like a genetic G-P-S! It cuts out sequences of D-N-A bases, replacing them with new ones. But this can lead to unwanted mutations.
So Nicole Gaudelli at Harvard figured out how to target just the spelling errors. Gaudelli’s D-N-A editor uses the same G-P-S system to navigate to mutation sites. But it doesn’t cut and replace sequences of D-N-A. Instead, it simply replaces individual bases, correcting the misspelling!
This new editor corrected about fifty percent of mutated cells. Fixing these mistakes is important for curing diseases like cystic fibrosis!
If only my iPhone’s autocorrect were that powerful! And accurate.