Consider the following statements :
1.Genetic changes can be introduced in the cells that produce eggs or sperms of a prospective parent.
2.A person’s genome can be edited before birth at the early embryonic stage.
3.Human induced pluripotent stem cells can be injected into the embryo of a pig.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct ?(2020)
a) 1 only
b) 2 and 3 only
c) 2 only
d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer: D
Germline gene therapy is the replacement of genes in egg or sperm cells with which an offspring inherits a new trait. It allows for the correction of disease- causing gene variants that are certain to be passed down from generation to generation
CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) technology is employed to modify human embryos before they are transferred into women’s uterus. Recently, researchers had successfully created the world’s first genetically- edited baby. By using CRISPR technology, the genomes of embryos were edited to disable a gene, CCR5, which allows HIV to infect cells.
Due to certain anatomical and physiological features shared with humans, the pig is considered an important animal model of human diseases with unique advantages in surgery and xenotransplantation studies.
