What is genome editing and CRISPR/Cas9？

Genome editing is a group of technologies used to alter an organism's genome. CRISPR/Cas9 is one of these genome editing techniques. 

Although it has appeared strongly in the media only recently, CRISPR technology is much older than you can imagine.

In fact, CRISPR/Cas9 is a natural process used by bacteria to protect from viruses infection. 

When viruses infect bacteria, they can capture the virus DNA and use it to create DNA segments (CRISPR arrays). On a second infection, bacteria use this DNA to produce RNA segments and attack the virus. To help them with this mission, bacteria use the Cas9 protein, an enzyme used to cut the virus DNA, disabling them. 

Luckily, scientists started to study this bacteria's immune response more in-depth, until they discovered that CRISPR/Cas9 could help not only bacteria but other species through the genome editing technology. 

Two of these brilliant researchers just won the Noble Prize. 

References

https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/understanding/genomicresearch/genomeediting

https://www.broadinstitute.org/what-broad/areas-focus/project-spotlight/crispr-timeline