Tinkering with Nature’s Tools: The CRISPR Pioneer Feng Zhang

What makes CRISPR -Cas9 such a groundbreaking genome editing tool? Hear from CRISPR-Cas9 pioneer Feng Zhang,  Ph.D., who shares not only what makes the tool so unique and how it works but also his personal journey into #science, which began with the film Jurassic Park. Zhang, who engineered the CRISPR-Cas9 system to work in human cells, is now using the tool to understand and treat human diseases, such as neurological disorders. In this short film, he compares CRISPR-Cas9 to past available genome-editing tools, including zinc finger and transcription activator-like effector (TALE) nucleases. 

Speaker Biography: 

Zhang is a molecular biologist developing and applying novel molecular technologies for studying the brain. He pioneered the development of genome editing tools for use in eukaryotic cells – including human cells – from natural microbial CRISPR-Cas9 systems. He and his team have adapted multiple other CRISPR systems for use as genome engineering tools, including RNA-targeting CRISPR-Cas13 systems and CRISPR-associated transposon systems, which can be used for gene insertion.

Producers: Shannon Behrman, Meredith DeSalazar, Sarah Goodwin, Regina Sobel
Cinematographers: Derek Reich, Amanda McGrady
Interview by: Adam Bolt 
Editor: Lee Rossoff  
Graphics: Chris George, Maggie Hubbard
Associate Producer: Shelley Elizabeth Carter
Executive Producers: Shannon Behrman, Sarah Goodwin, Elliot Kirschner

Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under
© 2007-2022 Science Communication Lab™. All rights reserved.

#biotechnology #genome

[johnboyghgfgd]

Great video! I know Dr. Zhang is also using genetic editing to learn more about psychiatric disorders. I've been battling with depression, OCD and ADHD since i was a kid, so the people who are researching these terrible disorders are heroes to me. I hope that one day we will be able to use gene therapy to combat these horrible disorders that ruined so many lives. It would be great to hear Dr. Zhang's opinion about if and when he thinks this could be possible. I read an article from 2010 where Dr. Michael Kaplitt used gene editing to decrease depression in mice. They wanted to keep researching it, though sadly i don't know much more about it. Also a few months ago i heard about scientists editing the epigenome in mice to reverse the effects of trauma. I hope there will be more focus on using gene editing for such disorders in the future, it could help millions of people and maybe even lead to cures one day.

[BallyBoy]

4:20 - Zinc Finger Endonuclease proteins, the old-school gene editing.

[gideonocholi]

Wow!!
So even Feng dozed off in a lecture 😅. I guess am not alone after all 😅

[Fossilized-cryptid]

thanks to dr zhang and his team and many more labs, us phds mds have the absolute kick of a time using crispr and other related tools to uncover the molecular mechanisms of so many hidden physiological processes and disease, i as an ophthalmologist for one use this to uncover the mystery of how the eye tries to reach emmetropia from hyperopia or myopia in primates, chicken & humans, salutations.

[dklimenok]

6:51 and onwards, a major typo in the subtitles: nucleases, no 'nucleuses'.

[JeffreyJorge-pp]

Can crispr help with we find all the
Genes that contribute to the condition can you just insert different gene variants ....

[saurabhvaish]

Nicely explained....!! Can we have more episodes on CRISPR Case9.

[williamvilchezcruz]

I'm interest in work with CRISPR-CAS . By the way, amazing video and informative 👏

[LiterallyGod]

I’d like to place an order for my son to have the height of Yao Ming, the speed of Usain Bolt, no actually the speed of a cheetah, the strength of a silverback gorilla and the wings of a falcon.

[saammahakala]

0:57
I has to say., if buddha knew he wasn't the first, who's to say you're not all rediscovering what's already been discovered ad nauseum not only on this planet, but on others as well?
I'm saying everything/everyone is cyclical., like a ❤️ beat!

[ubiqanon]

Lol, Pioneer or Pirate? Zheng backstabbed his mentor and then after founding a company with Doudna and Church he let the lawyers talk him into writing them out of the patents, while also writing out his primary collaborator who did about half of the actual bench work. Not how science should work. Probably a decent and obviously very smart investigator but he caved to the demands of the Boston lawyers who saw nothing but dollar signs.

[ngocbkhn]

We dont know what we dont know! That makes biology scientists be more responsible and careful in researching.

[nermeenabdelmoez]

He, some how, reminds me of Elon musk

[cypressmaccarthy]

He is the man who really can win the award of Nobel Prize.

[amitech]

DMD treatment use to patient cure treatment technology

[danielmoore]

My recent concern and what needs to be discussed is genetically engineering autistic and other neurodivergent people out of existence.

They're disguising their eugenics. They're already aborting more black people than white, they already disallow disabled people to be born, more females are aborted than males, all advertisements of designer babies are images of white males.
There's advertisements of anti aging which has nothing to do with sicknesses or diseases, if it was only about sicknesses and diseases they wouldn't of ever thought of touching the human germline.
This is racism, sexism, ableism, communism, eugenics and capitalism.

They do not have the right to mess with a person's genes just because they perceive something about them as a "problem".
Autism is not a problem, they claim they value all humans equally, since they want to rub us out of existence they clearly do not see us as equal, they are full of discriminatory thoughts like Hitler doing eugenics. The problem is clearly they're view of autism and other primarily genetic conditions. I love being autistic, I wouldn't give it up for the world.

Molecular biologist Miroslav Radman writes, "Mutagenesis has traditionally been viewed as an unavoidable consequence of imperfections in the process of DNA replication and repair. But if diversity is essential to survival, and if mutagenesis is required to generate such diversity, perhaps mutagenesis has been positively selected for throughout evolution."

This will bring us to extinction. Especially since there's contradictory evidence.

Evelyn Fox Keller explains:
"We now know that mechanisms for enduring genetic stability are a product of evolution. Yet a surprising number of mutations in which at least some of these mechanisms are disabled have been found in bacteria living under natural conditions. Why do these mutants persist? Is it possible that they provide some selective advantage to the population as a whole? Might the persistence of some mutator genes in a population enhance the adaptability of that population? Apparently so. New mathematical models of bacterial populations in variable environments confirm that, under such conditions, selection favors the fixation of some mutator alleles and furthermore, that their presence accelerates the pace of evolution."

The mutants behind autism and other conditions like Down Syndrome offer some great advantages to the human race, diminishing the genes is a great risk because without those mechanisms there is no asurety of genetic stability pushing us in the direction of extinction.

Psychologist Howard Gardner warns:
"With the coming of age of genetics, the danger magnifies. Beyond doubt we will discover genes that are important for reading alphabetical scripts; and there is already evidence that a small set of genes may be related to reading problems. As with the brain evidence, such information can be helpful for early intervention; but it could easily be used for stigmatising purposes. Indeed, it might become relevant for marriage prospects, holding a job, securing insurance, or even eugenic purposes. And no doubt, especially in our interventionist society, individuals with a genetic predisposition for reading problems will look into different kinds of genetic engineering or therapy. It is possible that such interventions will work and have no negative side effects, but it is perhaps more likely that they will have unanticipated effects. And we might even want to consider which valued human abilities - eg. spatial or pattern recognition skills - might be placed at risk were we to target our interventions specifically at reading disorders."

They really want to destroy all alternative perceptions and ways of thinking. They're ignoring how many abilities they are going to destroy and how impoverished they are going to make our world because of their cultural myopia.
Each time they have tried playing God they have only caused harm. Who caused the climate change? Scientists playing God trying to control nature, did the Gods anticipate the climate change?

They are not only messing with humans, this whole earth is interconnected, they are messing with the entire ecosystem, with all life. How many species have been brought to extinction because of humans manipulating nature, there's endangered species today thanks to humans manipulating nature.

If we fail to understand and take care of the natural world, it can cause a breakdown of these systems and come back to haunt us in ways we know little about. A critical example is a developing model of infectious disease that shows that most epidemics — AIDS, Ebola, West Nile, SARS, Lyme disease and hundreds more that have occurred over the last several decades — don’t just happen. They are a result of things people do to nature.
The diseases they claim they want to cure were caused by doing this, so why are they doing it again?
Was the world ready for COVID-19 to strike? I doubt it.
World War II was caused by eugenics, why are they following Adolf Hitler's steps?

Mutations are not random or accidental, malaria is endemic in Africa and Africans have developed mutations that protect them from malaria through adaptation, the sickle cell mutation is a defence mechanism against malaria. Europeans don't have these mutations, if a European goes to Africa they are more likely to get a disease. It was mutations that enabled the Europeans to survive the 14th century bubonic plague.
Editing one gene may cure a disease but at the same time make them more susceptible to other diseases. Eliminate the sickle cell mutation from the gene pool and you've destroyed the only defence mechanism against malaria.
Such foolishness.

This is wicked and pure evil to think we don't deserve to be born just because we are different. CRISPR-Cas9 is a direct violation of human rights, especially human autonomy.
They need to sort their discriminatory thoughts out and not touch us without our consent!

"The Human Genome Project is founded upon a fallacy. There is no such thing as "the human genome." Neither in space nor in time can such a definite object be defined. At hundreds of different loci, scattered throughout the twenty-three chromosomes, there are genes that differ person to person. No body can say blood group A is "normal" and O, B, and AB are "abnormal." So when the Human Genome Project publishes the sequence of the typical human being, what will it publish for the ABO gene on chromosome 9? The project's declared aim is to publish the average or "consensus" sequence of 200 different people. But this would miss the point in the case of the ABO gene, because it is a crucial part of its function that it should not be the same in everybody. Variation is an inherent and integral part of the human - or indeed any - genome."

The BBC Reported:
This complete, single human genome will be a monumental technical achievement. Only 70 years have passed since the double-helix structure of DNA was first revealed, thanks in part to a grainy black and white image taken by Rosalind Franklin, transforming our understanding of how genetic information is stored. Today we have the capability to read the entire genetic 'textbook' that makes a person unique.
But the geneticists involved say it is also a beginning, not an end. They now want to sequence the genomes of people from around the world, to build up a true picture of our species' genetic diversity. They want to understand what the previously unsequenced sections of DNA are doing. And they want to roll out end-to-end genome sequencing in clinics, to help doctors diagnose and treat us when we get sick.
In short, the human genome will never be complete. We will never be done reading it.


Why were you lying to the public for decades already?

[galationso]

Hey isn’t he using mRNA lipid nanopartcle just like in the vax