The ultra-selfish gene - by Mathias Kirk Bonde

Mathias Kirk Bonde chronicles the advancements in gene editing and their potential impact on the fight against malaria, for Issue 16. Read it on our website here. Ten years ago, humanity discovered a way to completely rid the world of malaria. To date this technology has gone unused, sentencing millions of children to an early and preventable death. That technology is the CRISPR/Cas9 gene drive. Almost every cell in our bodies contains 23 pairs of chromosomes, which are packages of the DNA and genes that provide the code for producing living things. Sperm and egg cells, however, each contain only one set of chromosomes. This set of chromosomes has been recombined from their parents’ chromosomes, meaning it contains a random mixture of segments from the parents. When a sperm and egg cell fuse, the resulting cell has a pair of each chromosome once again, resulting in 23 pairs. Because the sections of each chromosome to be passed on were selected randomly, any specific gene in a parent ha

Mathias Kirk Bonde chronicles the advancements in gene editing and their potential impact on the fight against malaria, for Issue 16. Read it on our website here. Ten years ago, humanity discovered a way to completely rid the world of malaria. To date this technology has gone unused, sentencing millions of children to an early and preventable death. That technology is the CRISPR/Cas9 gene drive. Almost every cell in our bodies contains 23 pairs of chromosomes, which are packages of the DNA and genes that provide the code for producing living things. Sperm and egg cells, however, each contain o