Clustered, regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, usually, and thankfully, acronymed as CRISPR,

are DNA sequences found in some organisms. And they're notable because they are basically

genetic leftovers from when a bacteriophage, which is a type of virus that infects and then melds

with bacteria and archaea, melded with those organisms.

And these sequences allow that bacteriophage to find and kill the DNA of other bacteriophages

that try to break into that organism's genes like they did.

So these creatures, these bacteriophages, throughout a decent chunk of the history of organic life, have glommed on to other creatures, been absorbed into them, adding their DNA to the infected creature's DNA.

And when they do this, this type of genetic sequence allows them to do a kind of find and delete function on that creature's genes, the one they've melded with,

so that other future bacteriophages that try to infect them the same way cannot.

This blending of genes is beneficial for both organisms because the host gains some immunity against other bacteriophages,

while the bacteriophage is able to perpetuate its genes

within that now more complex but better defended organism. So it's an evolution, genetic competition,

survival of the fittest sort of relationship. About 50% of the bacteria we have gene sequenced, up to 2018, when the

last study on this topic was conducted, contain these CRISPR DNA sequences, and about 90%

of sequenced archaea contain the same. CRISPR-associated protein 9, often short-handed as CRISPR CAS 9, is an enzyme, a biological catalyst that allows entities that contain CRISPR sequences to use those sequences to identify and cut out specific snippets of DNA,

and the discovery of this enzyme and the utilization of it as a tool for scientists and the techniques required to toolify it

earned the folks who developed those things the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2020 and went on to spark a wave of new gene-related developments as these things essentially allowed scientists to search for and destroy,

but also seek out spots in genes and insert new gene sequences

pretty much anywhere in an organism's genetic code,

which means CRISPRCast9 opened up the possibility of relatively cleanly editing an organism's genes for research, medical, or augmentation purposes.

Now, that is a serious simplification of both what CRISPR is and how it was developed into a technology, a tool,

that could be used as part of a larger collection of techniques for exploring and editing DNA sequences.

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