The BBC reports that a new way of editing DNA could correct 89% of the errors in DNA that cause disease. The technology, called prime editing, has been used to correct damaging DNA mutations in the lab, including those that cause sickle cell anaemia. It is the latest advance in gene editing, which is developing at a rapid pace.
DNA is found in nearly all of our cells, and gene editing is already changing scientific research with the promise of revolutionizing medicine. Nevertheless, deep moral and ethical questions arose after the creation of babies who were gene-edited to have protection from HIV.
Crispr-Cas9, a technology which was developed just seven years ago, scans DNA for the right spot and then cuts it in two, which creates the opportunity to edit the DNA. A study used prime editing to accurately insert or delete sections of DNA and to correct typos in a single "letter" out of the three billion that make up the human genetic code.
However, the edits are not always perfect and the cuts could end up in the wrong place. Both issues are a problem for using the technology in medicine.
In the words of David Liu, a biologist at Harvard, MIT: "Prime editors are like word processors capable of searching for targeted DNA sequences and precisely replacing them with edited DNA strands."