CRISPR/Cas9 Technology in Telomere and Telomerase

Elizabeth Helen Blackburn (skip to end for more details) and her colleagues discovered the telomere to have separate DNA from the DNA in our chromosomes. During cell division, our genetic information is copied to new cells. For this to occur, the chromosome relaxes, and the double helix of the DNA unwinds. The coping and brick-by-brick, nucleotide-by-nucleotide building (polymerisation) of each DNA strand starts to occur at multiple origins simultaneously. When this happens, there is usually an overhang of missing nucleotides. The telomere then acts as a filler by adding its DNA nucleotides to ensure that all of our genetic information is copied (see Figure 1 for more details). So the absence or shortening of the telomere would result in incomplete chromosomes, and eventually, our cells would die, like a crumbled Lego house. <a href="https://biogenesis.medium.com/crispr-cas9-technology-in-telomere-and-telomerase-3043480fc019">Read More</a>