Thought Experiment: CRISPR leads to virus in the movie, I am Legend.

Last night I watched I Am Legend starring, Will Smith. I chose this movie because it's theme is similar to the series I am writing. In the movie, scientists find a way to cure cancer by reprogramming a measles virus. Something goes wrong and the virus mutates on its own to become the worst virus known to man. Killing everyone but ten percent of the population. Leaving only those that are immune. If that's not bad enough, ninety percent of the immunes turn into feral ghouls. Leaving a very lonely one percent to carry the torch for humanity.

But how possible is the highly depressing scenario? Well, I think it's fairly possible. The Biotechnology Industry is growing faster than ethics can keep up. It's the perfect marriage. Biology and Technology. What could go wrong if we just play around with a little DNA here and there? Everything. Everything could go wrong. It could extinguish all life on this planet. Earth could become a barren wasteland. Don't even get me started about reprogramming mosquitos to be resistant to malaria... I digress. (https://www.nature.com/news/gene-drive-mosquitoes-engineered-to-fight-malaria-1.18858)

CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) is a family of DNA fragments found within the genomes of bacteria and archaea. Imagine its the book of fingerprints left by all the criminals that every infected it. This book enables the bacteria/archaea to know if any foreign DNA comes back. The CRISPR-Cas9 system is a prokaryotic immune system that recognizes foreign DNA and then cuts it up into little pieces. Reminiscent of how the police lift the criminal's fingerprint from the crime scene. Except the punishment for capture is death.

Basics: CRISPR is the ID tag. Cas9 is the scissors. The CRISPR-Cas9 system is adaptive, so it can change its ID tag to fight anything.

In order to treat cancer with it, you would have to be able to identify the specific gene or genes that were mutated in your DNA to cause the cancer (ID tag). A nearly impossible task... but maybe not for long. With the advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and quantum computing, it's just a matter of time before that becomes a simple scan.

Steps to cancer cure: 1. Scan for a find the ID tag for the cancerous cells. 2. Inject human with CRISPR-Cas9 system programmed to look for cancer ID tag. 3. It searches and kills those cells.

Simple right? Except when it doesn't ever stop, or the system picks up another "ID tag" to kill. And it's your healthy cells.

Back to the plot of the movie.

The scientist chose an horrifically contagious disease, Measles, and "reprogrammed it to kill cancer cells instead of try to kill you". For everyone one person infected with Measles, seventeen other people will be infected. Now imagine editing a measles virus to eat cancer cells or whatever it is they did, using the CRISPR-Cas9 system.

Big mistake. It now has all the tools it needs to cut out what you put in. Plus a way to adapt to our immune system's weapons. It becomes the most contagious and lethal virus ever. (Mmwahaha!) Since it's adaptive, people are affected differently. Most die, but some turn into highly aggressive carriers that have a programmed desire to infect and spread the disease to others. The new measles virus becomes the evil genius behind the scenes by reprogramming the humans. BOOM! The tables are turned.

Now everyone is dead. Just like in the movie. So... that's why I say it's possible. What do you think?

##CRISPR #IAMLEGEND #thoughtexperiment