GMO & Crispr-Cas9

GMO

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Crispr-Cas9 Written by Chen Jian Xun Design and edit by Rebecca Sopacua

GMO

Crispr-Cas9

Genetically Modified Corn GMOs Genetically modified organisms, are organisms that have been genetically altered to strengthen certain traits or to develop certain traits. In the old times when humans first started domesticating animals and farming, they performed a practice called selective breeding. Where animals or plants with a certain desirable trait would be bred with each other to strengthen a specific trait.

Farmers who desire bigger fruits would breed plants of the same species that have bigger fruits with each other. This results in the genomes that are responsible for determining the fruit larger fruit size would be strengthened.

How Crispr-Cas9 work Now these practices could all be done in the lab with gene modifying tools like crispr cas9.

Crispr cas9 is a family DNA sequence that could be used to cut out unwanted DNA strips and replace them with the wanted DNA strips. It does this by reading a RNA that is given to it and the RNA strip will tell it to cut a speciďŹ c strip of DNA in which a new set of DNA could be put in. so with the help of crispr scientists could cut out DNA in certain plants or organisms that would be a good trait to have in other plants and insert it in the other plants genome.

This may sound really confusing but it's just like how scientists could make apples grow bigger by giving them a strip of DNA from another plant that has big fruits. Some real life examples would be the glow in the dark pig which has a gene from a bioluminescent jellyďŹ sh, and hairless chickens.

Hairless chicken

Glow in the dark pig

Genetically modiďŹ ed foods could be beneďŹ cial as they could alter plants to have more yield, be resistant to certain bacterias and pests, or be able to grow in harsh conditions and climates. All of this would be able to improve food shortages and to support the ever growing population.

IMAGE SOURCES GMO https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fmiro.medium.com Glow in the dark pig https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.buzzfeed.com Hairless chicken https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it Crispr cas9 https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.contentstack.io How Crispr cas9 work https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.takarabio.com Genetically Modified Corn https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcQ1LP89vn_QNhj8bYNGoBhZaYnTeq3PtNpyTQ&usqp=CAU

INFORMATIONAL SOURCES GMO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_crops Crispr cas9 https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/explainer-how-crispr-works