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Scientists Are Using CRISPR in Attempts to Restore Vision, Cure Blood Disorders, and More
New clinical trials are underway to treat human patients with CRISPR, a technique that edits DNA in cells
The vast majority of existing medicines only treat symptoms of disease, rather than the root cause of them. But gene-editing technology, which allows scientists to tweak DNA, could lead to outright cures in the not-so-distant future.
At least that’s the promise of CRISPR, a powerful gene-editing tool that could revolutionize medicine. In 2013, scientists published the first study using CRISPR to cut and paste DNA in living human cells in a lab. Now, biotech companies are putting that idea to the test in human patients. A handful of clinical trials using CRISPR are in progress in the United States, Europe, and China.
Likened to molecular scissors, CRISPR’s power lays in its ability to snip out errant bits of genetic code, or replace genes altogether. In the first clinical trials, scientists will attempt the former. Swapping out nonworking genes for new ones is a more complicated undertaking, one that will likely take a few more years of lab and animal testing before it’s tried in people.
