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I'm really excited with this discovery! I can't wait to see the outcomes! I hope I will still be around to experience the results. Here's an excerpt... There's a lot of reading material on the internet, I'll just share this link for easier read. https://www.whatisbiotechnology.org/index.php/science/summary/crispr Here's the Juicy part... Application The CRISPR/Cas 9 system was first exploited by Danisco in 2008. The company used it to improve the immunity of bacterial cultures against viruses and many food manufacturers now use the technology to produce cheese and yoghurt. Since then the technology has been used to delete, insert and modify DNA in human cells and other animal cells grown in petri dishes. Scientists are also using it to create transgenic animals such as mice, rats, zebrafish, pigs and primates. Between 2014 and 2015 scientists reported the successful use of CRISPR/Cas 9 in mice to eliminate muscular dystrophy and cure a rare liver disease, and to make human cells immune to HIV. It is also being investigated in conjunction with pluripotent stem cells to provide human organs from transgenic pigs. Such work is directed towards helping solve some of the shortage of human organs for transplant operations and overcome some of the side-effects caused by organ transplantation such as graft-versus host disease. The technology is also being investigated as a means to genetically engineer insects so as to wipe out insect-borne diseases such as malaria, transmitted by mosquitoes, and lyme disease, transmitted by ticks. Issues In April 2015 a Chinese group reported the first application of CRISPR/Cas9 to (non-viable) human embryos. This development, together with the decreasing costs of the technology have triggered a major bioethical debate about how far the technology should be used. The technology faces two major issues. The first issue is a philosophical dilemma. It centres on the extent to which CRISPR/Cas9 should be used to alter 'germ-line' cells - eggs and sperm - which are responsible for passing genes on to the next generation. While it will take many more years before the technology will be viable to use to create designer babies, a public debate has already begun on this issue. So great is the fear that some scientists, including some who helped pioneer CRISPR/Cas9, have called for a moratorium on its use in germ-line cells. The second issue is one of safety. One of the major problems is that the technology is still in its infancy and knowledge about the genome remains very limited. Many scientists caution that the technology still needs a lot of work to increase its accuracy and make sure that changes made in one part of the genome do not introduce changes elsewhere which could have unforeseen consequences. This is a particularly important issue when it comes to the use of the technology for applications directed towards human health. Another critical issue is that once an organism, such as a plant or insect, is modified they are difficult to distinguish from the wild-type and once released into the environment could endanger biodiversity. Policy-makers are still debating about what limitations to put on the technology. In April 2015 the US National Institutes of Health issued a statement indicating that it will not fund any research that uses genome editing tools such as CRISPR in human embryos. Meanwhile, the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, under whose remit such research would fall, has indicated that the CRISPR/Cas9 technology can be used on human-animal hybrid embryos under 14 days old. Any researcher working in this area would need to first get a license from the Authority. Other leading UK research councils have indicated that they support the continued use of CRISPR/Cas9 and other genome editing tools in preclinical research. As regulators debate what restrictions to enforce with CRISPR/Cas9, the technology has become the subject of a major patent dispute. The first application to patent the technology was filed by DuPont in March 2007 (WO/2007/025097). This covers the use of the technology to develop phage resistant bacterial strains for food production, feeds, cosmetics, personal care products and veterinary products. Since then three heavily financed start-up biotechnology companies and half a dozen universities have filed patents. Two major competing patent claims have been filed in the US. The first, filed on 25 May 2015, is grounded in the work led by Jennifer Doudna at the University of California, Berkeley, and Emmanuelle Charpentier, originally at the University of Vienna and now at the Helmholz Centre for Infectious Research in Germany. The application has 155 claims and covers numerous applications for a variety of cell types (US Patent Application No. PCT/US2013/032589). The second, was filed by MIT-Harvard Broad Institute on 12 December 2012 for the work of Feng Zhang which focused on the use of CRISPR/Cas9 for genome editing in eukaryotic cells. It was given fast-track status and was granted on 15 April 2014 (US Patent No. 8,697,359). In April 2015 Charpentier and the Universities of California and Vienna filed a challenge to the patent with the US Patent and Trademark Office. It will take several years for the patent dispute to be settled. The legal wranglings over patents is unlikely to affect the use of CRISPR for basic research because the technology is available through an open-source repository. However, it could have an impact on clinical applications using the technique. This scientific profile was written by Lara Marks in June 2016 with generous input from Silvia Camporesi, Xiofan Zeng and Jonathan Lind. The piece was updated by Lara Marks in October 2020.