Scientists introduced CRISPR to the world as a gene-editing tool in the summer 2012, when landmark papers from two independent groups demonstrated how the system could be wielded to make cuts in DNA. Now, less than 12 years later, we’re seeing CRISPR put to use in groundbreaking medical treatments.
Virginijus Šikšnys was a senior author of one of those paradigm-shifting papers.
“It’s really rewarding to see how fast the fundamental discoveries that were made in the lab actually are translated into the clinics,” said Šikšnys, who is chief scientist and head of the Department of Protein-DNA Interactions at the Vilnius University Institute of Biotechnology in Lithuania.
Dispatches From The Front 