A new breakthrough will make DNA sequencing much more accurate and accessible, meaning it’s only a matter of time before your doctor starts doing it.
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Imagine you’re visiting your doctor for a checkup. Your doctor takes all the usual measurements like your height, weight, heart rate, and blood pressure, and then tells you she’s going to sequence your DNA.
A scientist cuts a DNA fragment under UV light for DNA sequencing. Image: AP Five years ago, when researchers first discovered that bacterial immune systems could be hijacked to edit DNA in living creatures, it was big news. The technology, called CRISPR, allowed scientists to more easily than ever cut and paste all those As, Cs, Ts, and Gs that make up the base pairs of DNA and encode the world’s living things. With CRISPR, scientists could use genetic engineering to tackle problems from disease to famine. But gene editing with CRISPR is so 2017. Recently, scientists have begun exploring n…