
A powerful new way to edit DNA - ghosh
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/04/health/a-powerful-new-way-to-edit-dna.html
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mbreese
This is somewhat old news in the field, but it's nice to see some mainstream
coverage of science. I'm glad that they mentioned to off target effects. I
think that editing with Crisprs is supposed to be somewhat noisy, so any uses
outside of the lab (eg clinical) will probably be limited. But, I haven't
worked with them, so who knows where this will be in 5 years.

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naterator
> Crisprs is supposed to be somewhat noisy

Since you seem knowledgeable: Do you know how they compare to other kinds of
methods for cutting/splicing new genes into DNA, such as Zinc fingers or
homing endonucleases? Specificity (non-noisy) seems like it would be _the_
most important feature of something like this. Although I guess we don't
really know, I could imagine "noise" turning into other horrible diseases,
loss of viability, etc.

Edit: And now I notice that they discuss this further down in the article.
Nevermind.

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TrainedMonkey
It is interesting how profession changes perception of the language. I work as
a software engineer and "modify DNA" sounds as a more natural description of
the process to me. I am speaking in context of taking existing DNA and using a
technique to identify specific locations in order to change them. In other
words there is no "redo" if you get something wrong. In news world editing is
much more natural and encompassing term.

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rflrob
I think "edit" is appropriate, since you aren't just randomly modifying the
DNA, but modifying the DNA at a specific location in order to introduce a
specific modification. Furthermore, in biology we usually use "modify" to mean
more exotic changes, such as adding specific chemical groups to the DNA (e.g.
methylation) that change how cells interpret the sequence.

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fzltrp
Software engineers often use the word "update" for operations of that kind on
databases, as part of the so called "crud" operations (Create Read Update
Delete), which represent the fundamental operations one could apply. I agree
with you that "edit" sounds good (and "cred" perhaps better than "crud"),
though it sounds a bit more like an ongoing action rather than an atomic
operation to me (personal bias I suppose).

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seiji
Reminds me of: "The original virus rips, or "unglues" \- as the name suggests
- DNA strands. The strand attempts to repair itself, but its proteins are
scrambled in the attempt." —
[http://ansible.wikia.com/wiki/Descolada](http://ansible.wikia.com/wiki/Descolada)

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keithflower
"The development of the new tool is an example of the unanticipated benefits
of basic research."

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bthomas
Worth noting that the initial discovery - identifying the common sequence
motif - is a purely computational problem.

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csense
> edit DNA

Isn't there an emacs mode for this yet? I guess Stallman is really slacking
these days...

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jimworm
tl;dr: like restriction enzymes, but easily retargetable because they
recognise sites using RNA.

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pR0j3c727
Is that site legit?

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sdegutis
THIS.

