Editing the Genome

Recently, a group led by Dr. Katherine A. High developed a technique to directly edit DNA in a living organism, which can potentially be used to correct disease-causing mutations. This image was a journal cover design for the primary research article about this technique. In the image, tearing off part of the surface of a human being reveals the human genome – the DNA that contains instructions to build our bodies. A, T, G, and C are the "letters" of the DNA code, representing the basic building blocks of DNA. The person's hand corrects the first two letters to “T” and “G”. The design emphasizes the ability we have gained to directly edit our own genome, which was made possible by this breakthrough technique.