In 2020, the Nobel Prize in chemistry was jointly awarded to two women – Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A Doudna – for their work on CRISPR-Cas9, a method to edit DNA, the blueprint of life itself.

Dr Charpentier and Dr Doudna thus became the sixth and seventh women in history to win a Nobel Prize in chemistry. The discovery was the result of their investigations regarding bacterial defence mechanisms and to use it as a tool for customizing genes in microbes, plants, animals or even humans.

CRISPR-Cas9 represents an amazing discovery that is now rapidly transforming the very face of biotechnology. For a long time, scientists have aspired to tackle genetic diseases by editing defective genes, but the technology has not been available till now. A recent one-week training workshop held at the Jamilur Rahman Centre of Genomics Research in the Panjwani Centre for Molecular Medicine and Drug Research, University of Karachi highlighted the myriad applications of this fast emerging field.

In November 2023, the gene editing technology obtained its first clinical approval for treating sickle cell anemia and beta-thalassemia in the UK, a huge leap forward. These serious blood disorders are caused by a single genetic error which distorts the structure of the blood cells and limits their ability to deliver oxygen. A few weeks later, the Food and Drug Administration in the US also granted approval to this new gene therapy for sickle cell anaemia.

Another exciting, related development in the field has been the combination of artificial intelligence (AI) with CRISPR. While burrowing through mountains of data of genetic material from Arctic shores to tropical forests, AI discovered hundreds of potential CRISPR variants in bacteria that are effective for editing human genomes. CRISPR-like mechanisms have been found to be operative in........

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