Creating Genetic Mosaic

The race for quantum supremacy subtly kicked off through the back doors of gene editing in the labyrinths of a laboratory muddled in secrecy just a few years ago. The human race can be immensely pugnacious and emulous, which often exposes the streak of bellicose jingoism and ersatz ideologies imbibed in them by their natural manufacturing defect.

Their cantankerous and petulant sides have raged millions of wars and erased the borders of countless nations throughout history. As long as human footfalls continue to saunter in this world, the race for supremacy or having the upper hand will never go out of style. The relentless hankerings for refinement have been imbibed in the physiological motifs of human engineering.

For the last decade, arduous efforts have been spent finely tuning the phenomenon of "gene editing" to suit oodles of purpose. Gene editing has ushered in the ability to implement highly specific changes in the DNA sequence of a living organism, essentially altering its genetic makeup.

In recent years, several "gene editing" technologies that have been introduced have tremendously improved gene targeting. Various methodologies, such as the CRISPER-CAS9 system, TALENs, and ZFNs, or zine-finger nucleases, have been developed during this process. In the gene editing spectrum, CRISPER-CAS9 (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) currently stands out as it’s dubbed to be the cheapest, fastest, and most reliable system for editing genes.

This spectrum of gene (genome) editing plays with infinite modalities, such as small DNA changes or the removal of sections of DNA. And hovering over this phenomenon, gremlin therapy targets the reproductive cells; in simpler terms, the changes made to the DNA will automatically pass on to the next generation. 

Looking across the legal landscape spectrum of "human embryo gene editing," nations around the world have been divided into three paradigms: "restrictive, permissive, and intermediate." Canada, Brazil, Australia, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France fall in the restrictive category, whereas the United States and the U.K. fall in the intermediate category. 

China and Mexico are on the permissive side of the gene editing race in human embryos.

Although theoretically legal, it was not sanctioned by the Chinese government. Hi Jiankui, a Chinese biophysicist, launched a project in March 2015 and June 2016 to edit genes in a human embryo with live birth and recruited couples, each with an HIV-positive father, for the experiment. 

And in early November of 2018, gene-edited twin girls were reportedly born, and a second pregnancy with a third gene-edited embryo was established. And by August of 2019, a third gene-edited baby was born. There were few people who thought of him as a maverick, and many thought his experiments were a failure.

He was sentenced to three years in prison for violating the fundamental practises of ethical genetic practice and for opening the door to the perilous territory of designing babies. By engineering mutations into human embryos used to produce babies, he ushered in an era in which science can re-write the gene pool of future generations by altering the human germ line, inevitably toying with the secrets of life and the future and possibly altering the course of human genealogy.

Based on the rate at which science has advanced over the last century, the human race may soon witness gene anomalies in the form of mutants, akin to the elaborate illustrative movie sequence "The X Men."Genealogy isn’t something to be toyed with since it holds the secrets to our past and can decipher an intricate network of ancestral lineage or pedigree, but at the same time, the grey factor that is lurking around the corner of the entire human race in the form of designed human embryos or human babies can and will alter the face of the future generations that will reign over the world.

Science and scientific research have always managed to introduce ever-new technologies that often run parallel with the human race. Standing at the epoch of the 21st century, it is certain that due to the quantum jump in science, the human race is certain to get a taste of a new genesis, perhaps new frontiers that will unleash mystifying fortuity.

(Chalise is a fiction writer and has a PhD in tourism.)