The document discusses advancements in genetic engineering, highlighting its potential to save lives, improve agriculture, and treat genetic disorders. Key breakthroughs include the use of gene editing techniques like CRISPR for enhancing plants' disease resistance and developing therapies for cancer and genetic diseases. Additionally, controversial research in human embryonic modification raises ethical concerns about the future of genetic intervention in humans.

1.  Genetically engineered immune cells are saving the lives of
cancer patients.
 Precise Gene Editing in Plants.
 DNA-editing breakthrough could fix 'broken genes' in the
brain, delay ageing and cure incurable diseases
 The Genetic engineering could slow aging, reverse blindness.
 The genetic engineering that could change humanity.
 Chinese researchers have genetically modified a human
embryo.

2.  Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification, is the direct
manipulation of an organism’s genome using biotechnology.
 It is a set of technologies used to change the genetic makeup of cells,
including the transfer of genes within and across species boundaries to
produce improved or novel organisms.
 New DNA is obtained by either isolating and copying the genetic material
of interest using molecular cloning methods or by artificially
synthesizing the DNA.
 A construct is usually created and used to insert this DNA into the host
organism.
 As well as inserting genes, the process can also be used to remove, or
"knock out", genes.
 The new DNA can be inserted randomly, or targeted to a specific part of
the genome.
What is Genetic Engineering?
The deliberate modification of the characteristics of an
organism by manipulating its genetic material.

3.  Breakthrough
-Killer T cells programmed to wipe out cancer.
 Why It Matters?
-Cancer, multiple sclerosis, and HIV could all be
treated by engineering the immune system.
 Key Players in Immune Therapies-
-Cellectis
- Juno Therapeutics
- Novartis
Immune Engineering

4. T cells can crawl, sense things, and even kill
other cells. They’re little robots.
“The T cell has a huge potential for killing. But the thing you can’t
do is inject T cells from Mr. X into Mr. Y,” Choulika says. “They’d
recognize Mr. Y as ‘non-self’ and start firing off at everything, and
the patient will melt down.” But if the T cells are stripped down with
gene editing, like the ones that were sitting in Great Ormond’s
freezer, that risk is mostly eliminated. Or so everyone hoped.

5.  Breakthrough
The ability to cheaply and precisely edit plant genomes without
leaving foreign DNA behind.
 Why It Matters
We need to increase agricultural productivity to feed the world’s
growing population, which is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050.
 Key Players in Engineering Crops-
-The Sainsbury Laboratory and John Innes Centre, Norwich, U.K.
- Seoul National University
- University of Minnesota
- Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Beijing
Gene Editing in Plants

6. The gene-editing technique could be critical in helping
scientists keep up with the constantly evolving microbes that
attack crops, says Sophien Kamoun, who leads a research
group at the Sainsbury Lab in Norwich, England, that is
applying the technology to potatoes, tomatoes, and other
crops to fight fungal diseases. “It takes millions of dollars and
many years of work to go through the regulatory process,”
Gene Editing in Plants

7. CRISPR offers an easy, exact way to alter genes
to create traits such as disease resistance and
drought tolerance.
 Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic
repeats(CRISPR, pronounced crisper) are segments of
prokaryotic DNA containing short, repetitive base sequences.
These play a key role in a bacterial defence system, and form
the basis of a genome editing technology known as CRISPR-
Cas9 that allows permanent modification of genes within
organisms.

8.  Scientists have discovered a new way to
edit DNA that could fix “broken genes” in the brain,
cure previously incurable diseases and potentially
even extend the human lifespan.
 The breakthrough – described as a “holy grail”
of genetics – was used to partially restore the sight of
rats blinded by a condition which also affects humans.
DNA-editing breakthrough could fix 'broken genes'
in the brain, delay ageing and cure incurable
diseases

9. In what is said to be a breakthrough for genetic engineering, scientists have
restored sight in partially-blind rats by using a new technique that may even
extend the human lifespan.
The Genetic engineering could slow aging,
reverse blindness.
 Researchers at the Salk
Institute in San Diego,
California, have uncovered
what they have described as
the “holy grail” in genetic
editing – how to insert new
strands of DNA into non-
dividing cells such as those in
the brain, heart, and liver.
 The successful experiments
were performed on rats
suffering from retinitis
pigmentosa, an eye condition
causing blindness that also
affects one in 4,000 humans.
After a few weeks, tests
showed that the rats were
able to respond to light..

10. The genetic engineering that could
change humanity.
CRISPR is already being used to make certain crops invulnerable to killer fungi, and
scientists have also created a strain of mosquitoes with malaria-blocking genes that
the insects successfully passed on to 99.5 percent of their offspring. But the
technique's most promising application is as a potential cure for hereditary diseases.
What are scientists' biggest fears?
The first is whether CRISPR can be used safely and without causing unintended
genetic changes. Even the best geneticists admit they have only scratched the surface
in their understanding of human DNA and the effects that CRISPR might have on a
person's 20,000 to 25,000 genes, which interact in still-mysterious ways. The larger
question, of course, is whether scientists should be tinkering with the human gene
pool at all.

11. Return of the woolly mammoth?
CRISPR has prompted fears that rogue scientists will create
"Frankenbabies," but researchers have been using the
technique to resurrect a completely different kind of beast. In
March, a team led by Harvard geneticist George Church
announced they had successfully copied the genes from the
frozen tissue of a woolly mammoth, a species extinct for the
past 4,000 years, and pasted them into the genome of an
Asian elephant. The next step will be to insert those genomes
into an elephant egg cell for implantation. The team hopes to
create a furrier elephant-mammoth hybrid that can survive in
cold temperatures, so that elephants can live comfortably
outside of Asia and Africa, where their own existence is
threatened by conflict and poverty.

12. Chinese researchers have genetically
modified a human embryo
The pioneering research is controversial, though it was conducted on damaged
embryos that could not have developed into a human. Many scientists contend
that newly developed genetic-engineering methods need to be studied further
in animals before running the risk of unpredictable human mutations and
scarier developments in human evolution such as eugenic programs.
The idea behind genetic medicine is fairly simple, even if the details are
complex. Copies of a unique genetic code—in the form of DNA—are present in
almost every human cell. People suffering from genetic disorders possess
mutated genes—that is, misplaced letters in their DNA. The idea, then, is to
heal genetic disorders by fixing the gene itself.

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