The Ultimate Peacemaker- War With Your Furry Friend
- angelzhang20090720
- Dec 9, 2023
- 3 min read
Date of completion - Mar. 5th, 2022
You peer out the window and notice an endearing stray kitten ambling around your garden. The cat lover in you almost opened the door to your garden until you remembered... you are allergic to cats. Not wanting to face the consequence of a stuffy nose or itchy eye, you walk back into your room with a sigh. Cat allergies are twice as common as dog allergies, affecting up to 30% of the population. An allergy's severity is often underestimated. As a pet allergy sufferer, Paige Wolf states, "This led to exclusion from... There were so many places I couldn’t go because exposure to an animal would send me into a severe allergic and asthmatic reaction. " Additionally, scientific research indicates that a cat can be a tremendous asset to its owner. However, people with allergies can hope to have a feline companion on their laps in the near future as scientists attempt to provide people with sniffle-free kittens.
Just like a war, one must begin with the cause in order to come up with a solution. When allergic individuals come into contact with allergens, the material that triggers the allergies, an invisible war begins. It’s as if an army is confronting its nemesis. A person’s overactive or hypersensitive immune system determines the harmless and innocent protein, Fel d1, as a dangerous enemy, just as though it were bacteria or viruses. The immune system responds by attacking the proteins, attempting to force them from the person’s immune system. All wars have a consequence. In this case? Symptoms, which are side effects of those attacks. Symptoms can range from a minor red-eye to a potentially fatal asthma attack.
It is impossible to avoid the allergen, as WebMD explains, "This protein, called Fel d 1, is produced or occurs with any and every one of your cat’s bodily functions." If it is impossible to avoid the enemy, then the next logical solution is to get rid of it. Scientists are attempting to find a strategy to eliminate the offending protein. Digging to the root of the problem, genes may be traced back to the source of the disease. CRISPR/Cas9, a revolutionary gene-editing technique, is on its way, with the hope of rescuing many people's dreams by creating an allergen-free cat. This technology precisely cuts out a section of DNA responsible for producing the protein. Just like a wound, the DNA naturally heals back together – without the sequence for Fel d1. The technique is already demonstrating enormous potential, as researchers from the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology found that, "Fel d1 was effectively deleted from cat cells using CRISPR."
Completely unrelated to cat allergies, CRISPR-Cas9 may also aid people in overcoming other allergies, such as food allergies. Broad Institute announced, "With the dramatic advances in genomic technologies, immunology, and microbiome research in the past decade, scientists are now in a unique position to explore the biological mechanisms behind food allergies." One day, CRISPR-Cas9 might find its use in tackling a bigger issue – food allergies.
Whether it is annoying cat allergies that cause millions of people to say goodbye to their beloved cats or troublesome food allergies, CISPR-Cas9 might be the ultimate peacemaker in the war between a person’s immune system and the infuriating allergens.
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