Any CRISPR fags here? How many years of studying will it take me to be 100% able to understand to the date discoveries in the field? I've done basic biology/ chemistry, but I'm a physics major already.
I'm just really interested in CRISPR, and I'm curious to know whether or not the time it takes to master this is anywhere near what it would take for CS/Physics/Math etc.
Thanks guys
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You need 2nd year and 3rd year molecular bio to start.
I don't think CRISPR is really hard to understand. It's a tool. It goes where you want and cuts where you want. Now, what we do with this tool is what is so important. And be sure we're enabling some cool shit.
Ok. But just give me a rough estimate of how comparable it is to getting a masters in mathematics. Is it as broad as that or more like computer programming? I just need a look into what ill be up against if I decide to start studying this
It's a tool, this is like asking how long will it take to learn to use PCR
I know it's a fucking tool man. That's exactly what the question is like. If a man uneducated in genomes and biology starts now, what is an estimated effort I need to put in to be able to understand the tool, it's implications, and its full use.
Don't make me repeat the same thing thrice you fucktard.
>"How long will it take for us to 100% understand 3D printers"
or something like this
Start reading dude, who the fuck knows how long it will take you to understand it.
:/
Oh well. I guess that'll be the route anyways. Any book/ material suggestions?
I guess you need to know basics of how DNA is structured and how genes get expressed and regulated. Also the engineering possibilities that come from how cells work.
I've seen people get a pretty good hand of molecular biology in a few months, even less time, but it is the kind of thing where you get quickly, but can constantly get new insight in (given you know a minimal bit of the basics).
Hell, synthetic biology is a field that emerged from some engineers havin a gander at dna
Best reply yet.
Any book recommendations?
This
as an undergrad who works in a synthetic biology lab (iGEM for those of you interested) the key to any of this is a good fundamental understanding of things. Anyone can learn how to operate machinery and pipette liquids, but if you don't understand why you are doing things you will fuck up 100% of the time.
>give me a rough estimate of how comparable it is to getting a masters in mathematics
Thats like comparing how long does it take to master philosophy as opposed to martial arts.
Well I always say Molecular Biology of the (Cell/Gene) for everyone educated that wants to know about things alike, because the books are pretty well rounded.
You will be looking for specific articles and reviews for the most recent stuff like CRISPR though
First, make sure you have a good understanding of basic CHEMISTRY and BIOLOGY.
Learn MOLECULAR BIOLOGY and MOLECULAR GENETICS, have an understanding of DNA -> RNA -> Protein and everything in between. This is important for understanding the actual molecular mechanism and downstream implications of CRISPR.
But what's interesting about CRISPR are its applications; to be able to understand the goals of CRISPR editing you should also learn about DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY and STEM CELL BIOLOGY. These fields are important to understanding how the underlying genetics of an organism leads to the final state.
After this start looking for some CRISPR reviews on google scholar or NCBI to get a general understanding of the field in its current form.
To have a truly 100% up to date knowledge of this field you should go through a PhD program, and if you do some undergrad research or post bac research in the field I think most PhD programs in this area would be excited to take a physics major.
hope this helped a bit
I'm guess you are interested in crispr cas9 system to edit genes, not its role in microbial immunity
Crispr is a endonuclease, meaning it cuts DNA into two strands. Endonucleases often work on short conserved sequences of nucleotides, but crispr has the benefit of using a target sequence of nucleic acid to enhance specificity on where it cuts. You can essential load it with any sequence you want to target for destruction. The obvious limitations are that you can use a reluctant sequence that is found throughout the whole genome and expect to only nap the gene you want. Secondly, as you might have guessed DNA is rather protected in cells, especially in eukaryotes with their nucleus, so transformation rate will always be low.
Crispr can be used by a toddler, at the low cost of 99$, to knockout a gene. You can also exploit the DNA breaks it induced to splice in your own transgene, but obviously a lot trickery and even lower rate of transformation
Questions?
a couple of days? maybe a week? its not hard
This was a great post. Any book recommendations?
CRISPR is piss easy. Our lab has taught undergrads how to do it.
If you've gone through basic undergrad molecular biology and genetics, you can be an expert on it with minimal study.
You literally only need a list of steps and a basic lab.
The fun comes with hypothesizing what you could do with it. Too bad stem cell research laws are backwards as fuck.
>CRISPR is piss easy. Our lab has taught undergrads how to do it.
This is where I don't believe you.
Biology of the Gene, 7th edition
or listen to the TWI podcast series (e.g This week in Microbiology) to stay up to date on developments
>The obvious limitations are that you can use a reluctant sequence that is found throughout the whole genome and expect to only nap the gene you want.
meant to be
>The obvious limitations are that you can't use a redundant sequence that is found throughout the whole genome and expect to only nip out the gene you want.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Click the whole link page and you find a complete procedure for transformation for plants
The whole reason CRISPR is big is because it is so cheap and easy. We have always been able to do what CRISPR does (e.g gene knockouts and transgenes) since the 70s
Dude I bought a kit a while ago and it was lietarly some Agar, ecoli some DNA some primers and I felt ripped off. It's rediclious how inexpensive and basic it is. The hard part is knowing how to apply it for more than turning bacteria glow in the dark.
Not him, but it really is not difficult to understand or "pseudo-understand" and use experimentally. Thing is, anything you might want to apply it to will probably require more biology knowledge and time to actually understand (to the point of being able to think like a researcher and consider a problem through all the biological/chemical angles) than you will ever have. People spend whole careers to understand a single topic. Fortunately for you, this is a simple molecular tool that does require lots of basic knowledge, but nothing too specialized or difficult, it's doable, it's not a whole subject like a degree so I don't know why you would compare it that way/
You just need a firm grasp of basic molecular biology. Just read a couple of books lmao.
>Hell, synthetic biology is a field that emerged from some engineers havin a gander at dna
This is literally bullshit. Did you get your information from a TED talk or something you retard?
You could grab a pdf of Lehninger's Principles of Biochemistry to get an idea of how DNA, RNA and proteins work.
What's their not to believe? It's a pretty common technique nowadays.
OP here.
So let me ask you.
The only thing currently stopping me from editing my genes are my abilities, a cheap kit to perform the gene editing, and a lack of "ethics" surrounding the CAS9 CRISPR thing?
IS THAT LITERALLY FUCKING IT FOR ME TO INCREASE MY IQ?
Hmm, I'll look into that.
I have this book right now: amazon.com
Opinions?
Here's how I do it in plants: you design the guides (lots of web tools online available for it), do some basic molecular cloning to put your guide cassettes into your Cas9 expression vector, transform (piss easy, you dip plants in bacterial solution), grow it up up, and then use PCR-based screens to detect editing.
Piss easy.
The problem is developmental biology, not ethics. Making edits to knock genes out in cell lines or model organisms is trivial. Homologous-recombination-mediated insertions are trickier but have been demonstrated to work and seem not much harder than knockouts.
But then you have the issue of how to introduce your changes into your body. If you want to, say, fix a gene in your bone marrow stem cells, that's doable. If you want to change genes in tissue without replacing stem cells and regrowing from scratch, you're going to need some kind of viral vector that will infect every cell you want to change.
Read Albert's Molecular Biology of The Cell
Read the Feng Zhang review paper from 2016 in Nature.
Congrats, you're 98% there.
Wait really?
well, Albert's is a good inch and a half thick...
lol