A decade on Crispr is already poised to deliver on its promise

From small acorns grow mighty oaks. And the seed that Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna planted just a decade ago has grown mighty indeed. The gene-editing tool Crispr–Cas9 is poised to deliver enormous benefits in healthcare and agriculture. How these benefits will be shared with the world is still a work in progress, however.

Crispr received a low-key reception from the scientific world when its repeating sequences of DNA were first spotted in a bacterial genome in 1987. Further investigation revealed that these repeating DNA sequences were part of a bacterial immune system targeted at viruses. Interesting fundamental science it seemed, but hardly something that could change the world. Yet early pioneers of Crispr spotted its potential and further work created a system that could both cut a genome at specific sites and insert new sequences.