Question: is there any way you can change human dna?

Simon Langley-Evans answered on 20 Nov 2013:

Harith, it was good to talk to you this morning.

It is possible to change DNA, quite easy in fact. We use proteins called enzymes to cut the DNA strands and can then insert new material, or just cut out bits that we would like to get rid of. This can be done with DNA from any species all the way from the simplest bacteria through to humans.

This would be a really useful thing to do to combat genetic diseases. Children with cystic fibrosis have a problem with mucous building up in their lungs, which if not carefully managed will kill them. If we could cut out their damaged DNA and replace it with proper working copies then we would cure them. The problem is doing this to all of the millions of cells in the body which all have their own copy of the DNA we are born with. At the moment this is impossible.

One answer might be to change the DNA when the individual is just an embryo with only a few cells, but like many other people I do not believe this is morally right. With cystic fibrosis they are attempting something called gene therapy to just change to DNA in the patients lungs. To do this they put the correct DNA into a special sort of virus. The patient inhales the virus and when the virus invades the lung cells it inserts itself into the human DNA and changes it to remove the fault.