CRISPR and reproductive screening
Open your materials, follow the steps, then turn in your work.
Explain how CRISPR-Cas9 edits DNA, including off-target risk, and apply it to a reproductive screening case.
1. Open your materials
Use the materials named in the first step below. Open lesson resources.
2. Start the work
Annotate the assigned CRISPR article, marking the guide RNA, the Cas9 cut, and the repair step.
Show all 5 required steps
- Annotate the assigned CRISPR article, marking the guide RNA, the Cas9 cut, and the repair step.
- Define off-target editing and explain in one line why it is a safety concern.
- Read the reproductive screening case and decide what CRISPR could and could not ethically do.
- Write a CER claim about using CRISPR in the case, with two pieces of evidence.
- Submit your annotation and reproductive screening CER as your daily evidence.
Lost your place? Reopen today's CRISPR and reproductive screening record. Find the last completed evidence ID, check it against the claim ceiling, and continue with the first unfinished step rather than restarting the whole task.
Check your work before submitting
- You'll be able to explain CRISPR-Cas9 editing and off-target risk.
- You'll be able to apply CRISPR limits to a reproductive case.
3. Turn in your work
DueCheck Schoology- Hand in
- Annotated CRISPR article (guide RNA, Cas9 cut, repair step marked; off-target defined) plus a CER on using CRISPR in the reproductive screening case.
How to submit and name your file
Use the submission route shown on today's today's page.
In Schoology, open your course and the assignment for this lesson. Attach your file, select Submit, and check that it appears in the submission.
PDF upload helpYou get two school days for every day you were absent, so this deadline moves with you.
Find this lesson's Schoology assignments
These are existing assignments for your section. Follow the directions in the assignment you are working on; this list does not add new work. Check Schoology for each deadline.
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How this lesson connects
Keep using what you learned last class: A defensible biomedical decision separates scientific evidence from value judgments, identifies who may benefit or be burdened, and states the uncertainty and tradeoffs that remain. Today: Gene therapies modify or use genetic material to change cell function, and their potential benefit must be weighed against delivery limits, immune effects, off-target changes, durability, and whether changes could be inherited.
Optional: listen or watch a unit review▸
Need help? Warm-up, timing, and directions▸
💡 Big idea: Gene therapies modify or use genetic material to change cell function, and their potential benefit must be weighed against delivery limits, immune effects, changes, durability, and whether changes could be inherited.
- 0-8Hook headlines; introduce guide RNA, Cas9, and repair as three discrete steps
- 8-30Annotate article: mark guide RNA, Cas9 cut, repair step; define in margin
- 30-45Read reproductive screening case; note what could and could not ethically do
- 45-62Write CER claim about using in this case with two evidences
- 62-75: check that reasoning names one limit
- 75-80Submit annotation and CER; preview Friday ethics synthesis
- • Hook: Show a headline about curing sickle cell disease and one about an ; ask which story matters more for policy.
- • Why it matters: Reproductive screening cases ask clinicians to apply capabilities and limits to decisions about embryos.
- • Today's work: annotation first (so you understand the tool), then the case (so you apply the limits).
- • Exit goal: Annotated article and reproductive screening CER submitted before the bell.
- • uses a guide RNA to direct the Cas9 endonuclease to a specific genomic address; Cas9 cuts both DNA strands.
- • The cell repairs the cut via NHEJ (often creating insertions/deletions) or HDR (if a repair template is supplied); HDR enables precise edits.
- • edits occur when the guide RNA matches non-target sequences well enough to direct a cut; this can disrupt -suppressor genes or other critical loci.
PLTW connection and today's work
Open Activity 2.2.1 Gene Therapy in myPLTW and complete the CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing activity alongside the reproductive screening case.
Today's stopping point: Vector chart should be done (Tuesday); CRISPR annotation and CER due today.
PLTW activity titles identify the course connection. If your account will not open, use the posted materials for today and tell Mr. Mendoza. Do not mark an online activity complete unless you completed it.
Use the turn-in directions at the top of this page. Do not create a second submission unless your teacher asks for one.
Show another explanation or a smaller first step
Need help? Choose a starting point
Lesson resources: reading, slides, and vocabulary▸
The deck carries the prior idea forward, lets you inspect an analogy, maps the rule to biology, and ends with the same evidence decision and exit ticket used on this page.
Generated from this lesson's canonical data with a red-team citation check.
A defensible biomedical decision separates scientific evidence from value judgments, identifies who may benefit or be burdened, and states the uncertainty and tradeoffs that remain.
Gene therapies modify or use genetic material to change cell function, and their potential benefit must be weighed against delivery limits, immune effects, changes, durability, and whether changes could be inherited.
A library keeps a master plan protected while working copies guide production at different stations.
- Why protect the master copy?
- What information moves?
- Where can an error change the final product?
Stored information can be copied, read, and converted into a functional product.
Genes are regulated biological sequences, not conscious instructions, and one gene rarely determines a whole trait alone.
- • Master plan maps to DNA.
- • Working copy maps to RNA.
- • Production output maps to or a regulated cell function.
Driving question: aims its cut with a short guide RNA about 20 letters long. If the human genome has 3 billion letters, how often will that guide accidentally match the wrong spot, and what breaks when it does?
What you already know: A defensible biomedical decision separates scientific evidence from value judgments, identifies who may benefit or be burdened, and states the uncertainty and tradeoffs that remain.
New idea: Gene therapies modify or use genetic material to change cell function, and their potential benefit must be weighed against delivery limits, immune effects, changes, durability, and whether changes could be inherited.
Visual or model: F1. F1. A lesson illustration or teaching diagram for CRISPR and reproductive screening. Use it with E1-E3; it is a model or context image, not experimental or patient data. What to notice: Trace the labeled testing, treatment, or biological process and identify where evidence limits the decision.
- Observe or measure the relevant feature in today's lesson.
- Organize the observation with a stable evidence ID.
- Apply this rule: Stored information can be copied, read, and converted into a functional product.
- Choose the option the evidence supports and state the limit of the conclusion.
Real biomedical example: Today the medical interventions team uses and reproductive screening to make a bounded evidence decision. A classroom model cannot predict , effectiveness, or long-term outcomes for a particular therapy or patient.
What the evidence supports: E1-E3 and F1 support the daily take-home when the response meets the stated success criteria.
What it cannot prove: The package does not support claims beyond this lesson's or any real patient diagnosis.
- • : Treating disease by adding, silencing, or correcting a gene in a patient's cells.
- • vector: A that delivers genetic material into a cell, such as a or virus, or an organism like a mosquito that spreads a disease.
- • : A gene-editing tool that uses a guide RNA to steer the Cas9 to a chosen DNA site and cut it, so a sequence can be changed.
- • : Relating to the ordinary body cells other than egg and sperm; changes in these cells affect only the individual and are not inherited.
- • : The egg, sperm, and the cells that make them; changes in these cells can be passed to a person's children.
- • : An unintended effect when a drug or gene-editing tool acts on something other than its intended target, which can cause side effects.
- • : Agreeing to a treatment or study only after truly understanding its purpose, risks, benefits, and alternatives; the understanding, not the signature, is the ethics.
Use it now: Choose one decision option. Cite E1 and E3, then explain how the rule connects the evidence to your choice.
Go further, optional: The source links below are optional enrichment. Every fact required for today's local evidence decision appears in this lesson package.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration is the source this lesson's claim is checked against: What is ?
Limit: A classroom model cannot predict , effectiveness, or long-term outcomes for a particular therapy or patient.
Stored information can be copied, read, and converted into a functional product.
Limit: Genes are regulated biological sequences, not conscious instructions, and one gene rarely determines a whole trait alone.
You can explain editing and risk.
Limit: E3 defines the classroom product or success criterion. It is not independent scientific evidence and cannot justify a clinical or causal claim.
PLTW-GEND-2026-11-06 · Simulated classroom evidence scenario
Your role: medical interventions team member
Decision: Your team must decide what the evidence from today's lesson supports before submitting the claim-evidence-reasoning response named on today's page.
- • Say the test is already fair, because it works and any family who wants it can choose to get it.
- • Hold the claim until you can name which Cleveland families are burdened and which barrier blocks them.
- • Argue the screening gap is a health outcome, since cost, distance, and insurance decide who is offered the test.
Response: State one choice, cite at least two evidence IDs, explain the rule that connects them, and add one limitation. Submit it as the claim-evidence-reasoning response.
Claim ceiling: Today's evidence supports a classroom claim about today's lesson. It cannot prove causation, diagnose a real patient, or justify action outside this room.
Reason for review: Your team must decide what the evidence from today's lesson supports before submitting the claim-evidence-reasoning response named on today's page.
Context: Today the medical interventions team uses and reproductive screening to make a bounded evidence decision. A classroom model cannot predict , effectiveness, or long-term outcomes for a particular therapy or patient.
- • T1: Annotate the assigned article, marking the guide RNA, the Cas9 cut, and the repair step.
- • T2: Define and explain in one line why it is a concern.
- • T3: Read the reproductive screening case and decide what could and could not ethically do.
- • T4: Write a CER claim about using in the case, with two pieces of evidence.
- • T5: Submit your annotation and reproductive screening CER as your daily evidence.
- • E1: U.S. Food and Drug Administration is the source this lesson's claim is checked against: What is ?
- • E2: Stored information can be copied, read, and converted into a functional product.
- • E3: You can explain editing and risk.
Measurements: Use only the measurements, units, graph, or counts supplied in today's task. No additional patient measurement is implied.
Figure finding: Teaching diagram for and reproductive screening. Trace the labeled testing, treatment, or biological process and identify where evidence limits the decision. This is a teaching model, not patient or experimental data.
Uncertainty: This is a composite classroom scenario. Missing history, measurements, or confirmation tests remain unknown and limit the conclusion.
Rate or percent = part / comparison total x 100%. Percent change = (new - comparison) / comparison x 100%.
If 18 of 60 records meet a condition, the frequency is 18 / 60 x 100% = 30%.
Name the comparison total. A percent describes the supplied group and does not automatically predict an individual's outcome.
Use today's supplied counts to calculate one rate, risk, frequency, or percent change. Show the denominator and interpretation.
Students often think A polished answer about and reproductive screening is trustworthy even when its evidence source, comparison, or limitation is missing.. The trap: Presentation quality cannot raise the evidence level. A classroom model cannot predict , effectiveness, or long-term outcomes for a particular therapy or patient.
Parallel case: A 16-year-old with severe sickle cell disease is offered a CRISPR-based therapy. Doctors would remove some of the patient's own bone-marrow stem cells, use a guide RNA to steer Cas9 to a single gene (BCL11A) that switches off fetal hemoglobin, cut that gene, and let the cells' repair machinery disable it. The edited cells are grown and returned to the patient so their body makes protective fetal hemoglobin again. The patient and their guardians consent after counseling.\n\nClaim: In this case CRISPR-based somatic therapy is an appropriate treatment to offer, because the edit is limited to the patient's own body cells, is not passed to future generations, and is chosen with informed consent to treat serious ongoing harm.\n\nEvidence 1: The edit is somatic, not germline. It changes blood-forming cells in one person and is not inherited by that person's future children, so any mistake affects only the consenting patient and does not spread to descendants.\n\nEvidence 2: Off-target risk is real but is being managed and consented to. The guide RNA is about 20 letters long against a genome of roughly 3 billion letters, so Cas9 can cut a wrong site that partially matches, and a bad off-target cut could disrupt a tumor suppressor or another important gene. However, the edited cells can be screened before they are returned, and the patient is weighing that known risk against the daily harm of untreated sickle cell disease.\n\nReasoning: Because the change stays in one consenting person and is not heritable, the ethical stakes are lower than a change that every future generation would carry. The off-target danger does not disappear, but it can be reduced by checking the cells and is being accepted knowingly to relieve a serious, present illness. When a competent patient consents, the harm is severe, and the risk is bounded to that individual, offering the somatic edit is justified.
This model shows the level of evidence and organization needed to complete: Models the CER format on a parallel gene-editing case: a claim, two pieces of evidence, and reasoning about whether to use CRISPR-based somatic therapy in a consenting teenage patient with sickle cell disease. This mirrors the structure and depth students must produce today without answering the embryo screening prompt.
- Write one defensible claim.
- Choose specific evidence that supports the claim.
- Explain the scientific rule that connects the evidence to the claim.
Keep the structure. Replace the question, facts, measurements, and evidence. Then recheck units, vocabulary, and whether the conclusion goes beyond the evidence.
Also due today: Submit your annotation and reproductive screening CER to Schoology.
- CER:
- Claim, Evidence, Reasoning: make a claim, back it with evidence, explain your reasoning.
- SOP:
- Standard Operating Procedure, the exact steps to follow (especially in a lab).
- Tracker:
- Your PLTW progress log where you record completed evidence.
- myPLTW:
- The PLTW course site where you do the online activities. Find it in Clever with your Microsoft sign-in, right next to Schoology.
Tap the speaker to hear a term. Add two of these to your notebook glossary with a definition and an example in your own words.
Pick just 2 or 3 words from today and make them yours: write what each one means in your own words, name the context clue or evidence that helped, then give one example from what you actually did in CRISPR and reproductive screening. Try your own words first; the glossary is there if you get stuck. This is voluntary and counts as extra credit, so keep it short.
Saved on this device. Show Mr. Mendoza or add these to your notebook glossary to claim the extra credit.
Classroom documents for this lesson are posted in Schoology. Open Clever, then Schoology, and find each one by the name shown on its card.
Use this if you were absent, got stuck, or need another pass before you submit the lesson artifact.
Placement rationale
Matched , , reproductive ethics by path:Medical-Interventions/Unit-2_How-to-Screen-Your-Genes/2.2_Our-Genetic-Future; keywords:gene therapy, reproductive. Score 138. Visibility: student-schoology (student-facing resource; link through Schoology rather than local path).
Open this when the class reaches this activity and use it to complete the required lesson artifact.
Placement rationale
Matched , , reproductive ethics by path:Medical-Interventions/Unit-2_How-to-Screen-Your-Genes/2.2_Our-Genetic-Future; keywords:ethics, reproductive. Score 138. Visibility: student-schoology (student-facing resource; link through Schoology rather than local path).
Use this after the required lesson work when you are ready for a harder application or a deeper connection.
Placement rationale
Matched , , reproductive ethics by path:Medical-Interventions/Unit-2_How-to-Screen-Your-Genes/00_Unit-Overview; keywords:gene therapy, crispr. Score 134. Visibility: student-schoology (student-facing resource; link through Schoology rather than local path).
Sign in to Clever with your district Microsoft account to open Schoology or myPLTW. Follow today's posted steps. If myPLTW will not open, use the posted alternative and tell Mr. Mendoza. Turn in your completed work through the Schoology assignment.
Practice: try a question, then check your answer▸
Claim ceiling for this check: Today's evidence supports a classroom claim about today's lesson. It cannot prove causation, diagnose a real patient, or justify action outside this room.
A student makes a certain conclusion about CRISPR and reproductive screening from one classroom result. What must the student add before the conclusion is defensible?
Write an answer and pick a confidence to unlock the key.
Fast retrieval with instant answers, not the commit-then-reveal check above. Try each from memory first: write what you remember about the earlier units, then check yourself here.
Missed class or ready for more?▸
Run this before you touch the bench. It is built from the real lab procedure, so the decisions you make here are the ones you will make with the equipment in your hands.
What today's skills lead to. These are real health-science careers this course builds toward. Tap one to see, on the US Department of Labor's O*NET site, what the job actually involves, what it pays, and how fast it is growing.
Today is individual work you can do from home: complete the same target above, then submit your CER.
Go to Schoology to turn this in. Submit one PDF. Put your first and last name in the document header. Name the file: FirstName LastName - Assignment Title - YYYY-MM-DD.pdf. If you cannot get in, see Mr. Mendoza. Do not skip the work.
Class still runs. Complete the online activity above (it's self-guided). Need the concept taught without a teacher? Use this authoritative explainer:
MedlinePlus: What is gene therapy?You've passed Unit 2, so the optional extra-credit track is open. Complete reserved-unit work from home, including virtual labs, for extra credit. Each item shows its correct submission route.
Open the extra-credit track- CompleteEvery required part of the artifact is present, nothing left blank.
- AccurateThe science and the data are correct and match the evidence.
- Scientific reasoningYou explain your claim with evidence and reasoning (CER), not just an answer.
- Professional communicationClear, organized, labeled, and written the way a clinician or scientist would.
- SubmittedGo to Schoology to turn this in. Submit one PDF. Put your first and last name in the document header. Name the file: FirstName LastName - Assignment Title - YYYY-MM-DD.pdf. If you cannot get in, see Mr. Mendoza. Do not skip the work.
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