Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said on Twitter that the gene-editing technology, CRISPR or clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, has “revolutionized health over the past decade.”
What Happened: Gates said Monday that he was “excited to see” how CRISPR will “continue to evolve and intersect with other technologies in the decade to come.”
The billionaire shared an article from Science titled “CRISPR technology: A decade of genome editing is only the beginning” in the tweet.
The authors of the article — Joy Wang and Jennifer Doudna, both from the Department of Chemistry, University of California — said with the advent of CRISPR genome editing and advances in computing and imaging capabilities has “initiated a new era in which we can not only diagnose human diseases and even predict individual susceptibility based on personal genetics but also act on that information.”
Why It Matters: Wang and Doudna noted that the applications of this technology convergence are “profound” and “far-reaching” and these are playing out in the present.
Doudna, the co-founder and chair of Mammoth Biosciences, Inc, jointly won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020 for her discovery of the genome editing tool.
“The CRISPR toolbox and its applications have profoundly changed biological research, impacting not only patients with genetic diseases but also agricultural practices and products,” wrote the duo.
The authors noted that it has become feasible to get a complete sequence of the human genome in less than 24 hours considering the first such sequence took 5 years to generate.
Evolution Of CRISPR, Screenshot From Science
They predicted that in the coming decade genome editing research and applications will continue to grow.
Recently, Gates supported genetically modified crops. He said, “Every piece of bread I’ve ever eaten is from genetically modified wheat, every piece of corn I’ve eaten is G.M.O corn. These are proven products.”
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