ABSTRACT

Global health security is constantly under threat from infectious diseases. Despite advances in biotechnology that have improved diagnosis and treatment of such diseases, delays in detecting outbreaks and the lack of countermeasures for some biological agents continue to pose severe challenges to global health security. In this review, we describe some of the challenges facing global health security and how genome editing technologies can help overcome them. We provide specific examples of how the genome-editing tool CRISPR is being used to develop new tools to characterize pathogenic agents, diagnose infectious disease, and develop vaccines and therapeutics to mitigate the effects of an outbreak. The article also discusses some of the challenges associated with genome-editing technologies and the efforts that scientists are undertaking to mitigate them. Overall, CRISPR and genome-editing technologies are poised to have a significant positive influence on global health security over the years to come.

摘要

全球卫生安全持续受到传染病威胁。尽管生物技术的进步改善了此类疾病的诊断和治疗，但发现疫情的延迟和某些生物制剂缺乏对策仍然对全球卫生安全构成严峻挑战。在这篇综述中，我们描述了全球健康安全面临的一些挑战以及基因组编辑技术如何帮助克服这些挑战。我们提供了具体的例子，说明如何使用基因组编辑工具 CRISPR 来开发新工具来表征病原体、诊断传染病以及开发疫苗和疗法以减轻疫情的影响。本文还讨论了与基因组编辑技术相关的一些挑战以及科学家为缓解这些挑战所做的努力。总体而言，CRISPR 和基因组编辑技术有望在未来几年对全球健康安全产生重大积极影响。