Like CRISPR, pedagogy is a tool of both breadth and precision.
June 4, 2017 10:49 AM   Subscribe

 
Interesting, thanks. I'm studying IP law, so I found this interesting. CRISPR comes up a lot in Patent, both because of the current litigation and because of the potential for it to be used to create new theoretically patentable genome sequences.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:00 AM on June 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


It is my strong belief that all of this could be explained to the 7 year old... with the attention span of the child being the limiting factor. I'm sure I could explain the whole thing to my 11 year old daughter.

The topics of discussion varied, and it was easy to see how jargon was an effective tool at conveying context across the whole spectrum of specialization. Thanks!
posted by MikeWarot at 11:40 AM on June 4, 2017


They will find the striped socks preference gene, and the right eyebrow raise gene. It is just a matter of ethics.
posted by Oyéah at 11:53 AM on June 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


They somehow managed to miss my level of complexity. I can understand the conversation with the expert roughly, but I still don't know what the acronym "CRISPR" stands for (or cas9 for that matter), or what advance made building the tags that tell it where to go in the genome easy. Or if that's been easy for decades, then what got solved/invented/thought up that made CRISPR possible today? What's going on on the molecular level, without using a metaphor of scissors?

The conversation with the grad student and expert were interesting, esp. the bits about ethics and possibilities for the future, and I enjoyed them, but I don't think they helped me understand what CRISPR actually is; in particular they talk a lot about what it could do without giving me a good conception of what it can't do.

FWIW I've had the same criticism of the other "five levels of complexity" explanation that Wired has put out. It's a challenge with communicating any scientific concept to a large group; if you could have a one-on-one conversation with each person in the group individually, you'd be able to use the concepts they already understand to give a much better description than if you have to guess what concepts the average college student understands (as is the case if you're giving a lecture to a whole hall full of them).
posted by nat at 12:46 PM on June 4, 2017 [3 favorites]


I concur, nat. They seemed very fixated on the legal, ethical, societal opinions around CRISPR and i too am more interested in the mechanism. That said, the expert did touch on the question I had, which was roughly: how the fuck does the RNA know exactly where to go? Oh, it sometimes doesn't.
posted by sibboleth at 1:01 PM on June 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


Agree with nat and sibboleth plus I would like to know exactly what happens in the lab. What equipment and materials do they use? What are the motions they go through? Sometimes analogies obscure rather than illuminate.
posted by Botanizer at 1:24 PM on June 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


I am interested also in the legal, ethical, societal stuff-- but I feel like I can't adequately participate without understanding the mechanism (partially because then I would have some idea what *not* to be worried about it doing).

And actually what you mention about the expert is exactly my issue-- they mention that sometimes there's an issue, but I sort of have to guess by their discussion of what goes wrong how it works when it goes right (because that part wasn't explained in the lower-level discussions).

I think the level I really want is "grad student beginning research".
posted by nat at 1:28 PM on June 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


What happens when they find the "born this way" gene and are able to switch it on demand?
posted by sammyo at 1:33 PM on June 4, 2017


the acronym "CRISPR"

Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats


a lot to decipher there tho'
posted by sammyo at 1:36 PM on June 4, 2017


I think I liked it better when I thought it was some kind of food additive from one of those occasional threads about really gluttonous American consumption.
posted by biffa at 3:23 PM on June 4, 2017 [2 favorites]


Come on people, let's not lose sight of what's important here: that nightmarish set.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 3:29 PM on June 4, 2017 [2 favorites]


They will find the striped socks preference gene, and the right eyebrow raise gene. It is just a matter of ethics.

I would settle for genetic engineering to let me raise just one eyebrow. EITHER is fine.

I really liked that format though.

Also, Sammyo, e:f;b, damn you. [grin]
posted by Samizdata at 3:31 PM on June 4, 2017


> What happens when they find the "born this way" gene and are able to switch it on demand?

Fully automated luxury gay space communism, presumably.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 4:17 PM on June 4, 2017 [8 favorites]


Hopefully!
posted by Joseph Gurl at 4:35 PM on June 4, 2017 [2 favorites]


I can give a very brief explanation of the mechanism! The acronym was above; as with a lot of molecular biology it doesn't help you understand too much.

CRISPR evolved as a way for bacteria to protect themselves from viruses. Specifically, bacteria have evolved a protein called Cas9. Cas9 is a nuclease - a protein that cuts DNA. The magic of Cas9 is that it is programmable - it cuts DNA according to small RNA molecules. What the bacteria do is they keep a little copy of virus DNA in their genome and transcribe RNA out of it (the "guide RNA"). The RNA binds to the Cas9 and guides it to any DNA sequence (e.g., other viruses) that is highly similar to the RNA sequence. So if another virus comes around, the bacteria can cut it up before it does any damage. Nucleases - proteins that cut DNA - are very common. The magic is that this one can be targeted by these small, easily produced RNAs. Good for the bacteria to be able to defend against all types of viruses; good for us to use it to cut all types of DNA in all types of organisms.

Such a programmable nuclease has been a dream for a long time, and now that it has been discovered it can be used for all sorts of things (more than has been thought of yet!). One thing you can use it for is to delete genes by cutting them up - similar to how the bacteria use it. In conjunction with other techniques, you can also use it to insert genes. It is an efficient way to manipulate DNA that is both cheaper and more accurate than any previous method - that's why it's such a big deal.
posted by Buckt at 4:38 PM on June 4, 2017 [19 favorites]


I'm aware RadioLab gets a bit of hate here, but they have several great podcasts on CRISPR - really well explained. I forced my kids to listen to several of them and they now have quite a good understanding.

http://www.radiolab.org/story/antibodies-part-1-crispr/

http://www.radiolab.org/story/update-crispr/
posted by greenhornet at 5:16 PM on June 4, 2017 [3 favorites]


Thanks greenhornet, I was trying to remember which podcast I thought was quite good (although a bit annoying around the edges). The second on is definitely worth listening to (with a finger on the jump 10 seconds button to skip the chatter :-) They seemed to have talked to serious researchers and distilled the essential ideas quite well.
posted by sammyo at 5:31 PM on June 4, 2017


Was there ever an Antibodies part II?

Very helpful post, btw. Most of my clients are in bioscience, so any way I can catch up is appreciated.
posted by BS Artisan at 6:59 PM on June 4, 2017


Yes, the Radiolabs on CRISPR are excellent.
posted by lazaruslong at 5:29 AM on June 5, 2017


Most of what I know about CRISPR is that I get an inordinate amount of spam about it, as far as I can tell just because my employer has a well known med school (also, knockout mice). I guess it's good to know it's not entirely as dubious of an industry as all this spam makes it seem?
posted by advil at 6:23 AM on June 5, 2017


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