Dragons have long been a staple of ancient, medieval, and modern culture. From the many-headed hydra of Greek mythology to the fire-breathing drakes of Western European lore to the sapient serpentine beings of East Asian tales, dragons have captivated the world for thousands of years.

Even today, we revere them, and they can be seen in popular movies, TV shows, books, video games, and other media. Most notably, they have appeared alongside Queen Daenerys Targaryen in George RR Martin’s book series A Song of Ice and Fire and the accompanying HBO series Game of Thrones. Of course, dragons aren’t real animals, but using genetic engineering, could we create dragons in real life.Using CRISPR (Clustered regularly-interspaced short palindromic repeats) sections of DNA and CAS-9 (CRISPR-associated protein 9) enzymes, scientists have been able to edit cell lines in various organisms and insert genes of their choice.

This has resulted in the creation of GloFish, hypoallergenic cats, and various genetically modified crops. So far, this method of genetic engineering has been tested on over 20 species, including humans.