COLUMN: CRISPR – the hottest tool in biotech
Gene editing is the hottest new technique in biotechnology. Even though biologists have been editing the genes of organisms for the past two decades, a hot new development has revolutionized the way it is accomplished. This breakthrough is known as “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats” – or CRISPR for short. Unlike older methods of editing genes – which could cost 1000s of dollars – biologists are able to edit the genes of nearly any organism for about $30 using CRISPR. CRISPR was originally a mechanism that bacteria used to defend themselves from their enemies.









