Should CRISPR-Cas9 be used to revive extinct species?

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Should CRISPR-Cas9 be used to revive extinct species? 

    The rapid loss of species that we are experiencing in our century is estimated by experts to be between 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than the natural extinction rate. Horrifying statistics suggest that the current extinction rates sum up to a thousand times higher than they previously were before human existence and that out of the 100,000,000 different animal species that live on this planet, a minimum of 10,000 species get extinct every year raising many questions on what causes these figures to increase dramatically. Factually, the main reason is due to the sabotage humans enforce on our natural eco-system. Many Factors as pollution, burning fossil fuels, and deforestation all contributed together to create an unstable environment for the uprising number of various species. Scientists believe that we are entering a new era of mass extinction called the Holocene Extinction era which is defined as an extinction phase caused by human’s influence upon nature that leads to its destruction. Scientists have been trying to solve this problem through” Breeding programs” by finding the best matches between animals to generate the right offspring  and as the same time to preserve a high level of genetic and demographic diversity as well. Although this method speeds the outcomes but is often misguided as it results in creating species that are not genetically diverse and incapable of adapting whenever there was any change in its environment.

However, Scientists took other innovative approaches to fix the damage and revive extinct animals through gene-editing techniques.  With the genetic engineering technology CRISPR-Cas9, researchers have discovered a way to reconstruct and edit DNA and restore the earth's natural restoration and function.

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   CRISPR  or (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) is a group of DNA sequences situated within the genes of prokaryotic viruses such as bacteria. CRISPR-Cas9 technology uses an enzyme (Cas9) that acts as a molecular clipper to cut DNA strands of the invading bacterial viruses. This enabled scientists to easily target the immune defense mechanism and modify DNA sequences through providing a copy of the DNA sequence called “RNA Guide” to direct Cas9 to edit and cut the targeted DNA strand .Subsequently, scientists could apply their techniques and modify parts of this specific organism’s genome.

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