The CRISPR Craze: What is it?

New technologies are fundamentally changing how biologists understand organisms. One of the most prolific new technologies is the adaptation of a microbial adaptive immune response for precision genome targeting. The Clustered Regularly Interspaced Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) system has been repurposed by biologists to allow rapid, precise, and inexpensive targeting of DNA within an organism. This has accelerated the ability to understand fundamental properties of living organisms, provide therapeutic solutions to genetic disease, and reduce vector born human diseases. This talk will focus on how this naturally occurring system has been adapted into a tool in the lab and discuss some of the most exciting uses of this new tool.