Modern gene editing is not a paradigm shift, but rather a technical innovation, and one that will surely bear fruit, at least at the level of substantially incr

Modern gene editing is not a paradigm shift, but rather a technical innovation, and one that will surely bear fruit, at least at the level of substantially increasing the rate at which biological research and bio-industry processes can advance. Crispr, and the newly identified similar process using Cpf1, allow one to perform gene editing at a rate and on a scale not previously feasible. Whether it will eventually have benefits in medicine remains to be seen. Previous technological breakthroughs in genetic modification, such as adenovirus-mediated gene therapy, RNAi, etc, have had limited impact. I believe the best effects have occurred in the fields of several narrowly defined leukemias. In these cases the entire cell population is under constant renewal, so introducing an engineered line of blood cells and removing the malignant one has been technically possible since the invention of bone marrow transplants. Doing so for other cell types or organs is much more difficult.