• Question: can you extract and alter dna

    Asked by heat532hand98 on 13 Feb 2026. This question was also asked by wood532axed45.
    • Photo: Andrew Senior

      Andrew Senior answered on 13 Feb 2026:

      It can be done. But this is something that sits primarily in the sphere of research. DNA editing (as it’s called) is highly controversial and doesn’t have very many human applications just yet. Mainly it’s used to alter extracted DNA, which is then reintroduced for therapeutic reasons. Gene therapy is an example of this and has had limited success in medicine.

    • Photo: Rosie Currams

      Rosie Currams answered on 26 Feb 2026:

      Yes you can! But as Andrew said, this technology is currently very limited, as the ethics around human use are still unclear. A move towards gene therapy as a technique to alter DNA to help genetic disorders is advancing, but there are still many obstacles in the way before this can be a widely used therapy.
      Besides human applications, model organisms can be used to study these techniques, and see if we can adapt this for human use, and look at the effects of altering DNA.

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