Use in clinical context
Genetic variants are found throughout the genome. While many have no adverse effect on the individual, others can result in disease. Where the function of these adverse variants is known, it could be advantageous to ‘edit’ them out of the individual to treat or prevent genetic disease.
Genome editing is not yet available clinically, but with progress made with CRISPR (the main method of genome editing), it could be used to treat and cure many genetic diseases by ‘repairing’ the disease-causing variant(s).
Related terms
Cell | CRISPR | Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) | Genome | Variant
