[music plays]
[Jennifer Doudna:] Science is a serendipitous
endeavor. We're exploring nature and trying
our best to get at the truth. And every now
and then, we're surprised.
[Ethan Bier:] When I first heard it, I thought
it was too good to be true because, you know,
there had been many iterations through my
career as a geneticist where people said,
“oh, we have this method that allows you
to change DNA in any way you want.” I thought,
“well, I’ve heard that before."
[David Liu:] In the simplest terms, CRISPR is
a bacteria's version of your immune system.
[Amy Wagers:] In the laboratory, we've adapted
that bacterial system in a way that we can
use it to reprogram genes within our own cells.
[Omar Abudayyeh:] I like to use the analogy
that CRISPR-Cas9 is like a word processor
for our genome. So it's almost like a cursor
where you can move it from letter to letter
in your DNA.
[Neville Sanjana:] Until very recently, it's
been very difficult to do operations like
cut, copy, and paste.
[Bier:] The promise of CRISPR
is that you can change DNA in any way you want.
[Sanjana:] We can literally ask, how do all genes
in the genome -- all 20,000 genes -- how do
they influence this one interesting disease
or this one interesting facet of biology.
[Mariette Andersson:] By using CRISPR, we
can develop products and novel crops that
won’t have been possible otherwise.
[Jonathan Gootenberg:] Discovering drugs, detection
or therapeutics.
[Liu:] The ability to change one base pair
at a targeted site in a living cell is something
I think even five years ago would have sounded
more like science fiction to me.
[Doudna:] It’s hard to imagine all of the
ways that it will be used going forward.
[Jennifer Mitchell:] In my 20-year career
as a scientist, this is the first time something
so transformative has happened.
[Bier:] CRISPR is insanely cool--very, very
big breakthrough.
