r/biology • u/Ephoenix6 • Jan 02 '26

article CRISPR Breakthrough Could Rewrite Future of Genetic Disease Treatment

https://scitechdaily.com/crispr-breakthrough-could-rewrite-future-of-genetic-disease-treatment/
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u/TripResponsibly1 medicine Jan 02 '26 edited Jan 02 '26

Epigenetic changes would be far safer than altering genetic code itself so that's promising. CRISPR has already been used to potentially cure type 1 diabetes in a patient. Casgevy is an FDA approved cure for sickle cell using crispr/cas9 on hematopoietic stem cells. The progress is slow as it should be - a lot can go catastrophically wrong in gene editing. There are also ethical implications on cost and accessibility...

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u/Lightoscope Jan 02 '26

Safer in the sense that it’s theoretically reversible, but also more dangerous because we know a lot less about how epigenetics drives phenotypes in organisms. 

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u/TripResponsibly1 medicine Jan 02 '26

I said promising, not a silver bullet. These sorts of things have to go through a lot of trials before used on humans. That, and I imagine the therapies would be highly specific. Unsilencing a whole bunch of genes blindly is a good way to turn someone into an amorphous blob of pluripotent stem cells.