As far as man has been in a fierce war against different diseases and their roots that curtail his lifetime. Medical science has finally come to the stage where external pathogens; bacteria and viruses, can be held at bay, but it has not stopped the internal pathogens; such genes that lead to some of the diseases like Alzheimer’s, cancer and sickle cell anemia.
Doctors can not treat the main cause of the disease because for years, they have been trying to limit efforts at medical treatment to the symptoms of these diseases. That was, until Mammoth Bioscience’s new technology, known as CRISPR, was unveiled by company co-founder and CEO Trevor Martin, in a lecture he gave at the Web Summit 2025, where it concluded activities in the Qatari capital.
Gene therapy as a solution for incurable diseases
Human genes also cause a number of diseases, wherein the presence of a certain gene in human DNA, or the absence of a gene or the presence of the gene, in an incorrect form causes the disease. While the cause of many of these diseases has been revealed by science, and some know already the causes of them, as well as the genes that cause the diseases, no modern medicine has available the means to take action on this knowledge and treat diseases in a permanent way.
The one that Mammoth has used CRISPR technology for. It was explained by Trevor Martin in his lecture that CRISPR only treats the genetic problems in DNA, allowing to remove the main cause of the disease, for example, by deleting the gene or putting it in a form that would no longer show up.
The technology, which seems on another planet, is already being used by the company to treat a condition known as sickle cell disease (the result of a genetic defect that means red blood cells can’t carry oxygen properly) and has been the first product of the technology to come to market.
So, this technology has already been introduced in the United States, where the treatment has overcome all tests and approvals and, in effect, has already proven heals in the complete prevention of the problem and to some extent - in the complete solving of the problem.
Similar to editing text documents
When explaining how CRISPR works, Trevor gave a simple description of how the technology works on an individual’s genetic makeup and DNA in a manner akin to how text document editing applications work with documents.
So, it is just to be clear that the technology can look for a particular genetic structure in a person’s DNA, in exactly the same way as the technology does when using a text editing app. It can actually modify that specific genetic structure, by removing nucleic acids, or adding nucleic acids to treat the disease.
After observing the bacteria after it became infected with viruses that change its DNA, it was inspired to use this technology by the Mammoth team. The bacteria remove the genetic sequence the virus modified in an effort to protect itself, the team found. The team therefore took this mechanism out of the bacteria and called it ‘CRISPR.’ One of the company’s researchers won the Nobel Prize in Science for research on CRISPR technology.
Limitless horizons
At the end of his talk on CRISPR technology, Trevor stated that this technology is not new, however it was not so popular few years ago, but the team’s research was able to perfect and reduce the size of the technology to where it can now target human DNA and enlarge the uses.
But he also noted that future aims will include applying the technology to gain the future limitless horizons of medical treatment. Whereas genetic diseases such as Alzheimer’s are currently treated, genetics have moved beyond that and can now be used to genetically modify humans, add specific genes to its DNA for example or perhaps even modify a specific genes that inhibit heart attack or other Factors that stimulate disease like obesity.
However, such technologies are usually legal and legislative hard to overcome, but their validity and importance are still undoubted. Ultimately, we can use CRISPR technology to eliminate diseases that have been wiping out humans for so many years such as cancer, Alzheimer’s and others.
