CRISPR: The cutting edge

CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat, and is a type of DNA sequence with a recognisable signature that’s found in bacteria and archaea. It’s involved in their defence against invaders such as viruses – in short, CRISPR is a bacterial immune system. Except this immune system works by deploying molecules that snip up parts of the attacker’s DNA, a system now repurposed by molecular biologists to introduce targeted changes into any genome, including the human genome. As such, CRISPR has become the go-to method for gene editing.