CRISPR, a nifty gene-editing tool, has swept the scientific community off its feet. It has a catchy name, it’s in every other publication, it is the subject of a volatile legal dispute involving claims to its intellectual property (1), its use has instigated a multitude of summits to do with its ethical ramifications and, despite the fact that it’s less than 4 years old, the Science journal named it the ‘breakthrough of the year’ (2). To give you some perspective, the other contenders were the New Horizon’s epic visit to the dwarf planet Pluto, the discovery of a lymphatic system in the brain, and the Ebola vaccine.
Well, you get the picture, CRISPR is a big deal, but what on Earth is it and why are scientists so smitten by it?