Researched
CRISPR gene editing
A programmable molecular scissor lets researchers edit DNA at a chosen spot, cheaply and quickly.
Open in the interactive tree →Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier showed in Science in 2012 that the bacterial protein Cas9 can be steered by a short guide RNA to cut any DNA sequence; Feng Zhang and George Church applied it to human cells in early 2013. Doudna and Charpentier received the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. It cut the cost and time of genetic experiments from months to days and led to the first approved gene-editing therapy.