2019

In July, in first clinical trial for CRISPR-Cas 9 gene editing, sickle cell patient Victoria Gray had stem cells extracted from her blood (ex vivo) and reinjected (in vivo) following gene editing using CRISPR-Cas 9. The gene editing activated a gene that produced a type of healthy blood cell normally formed only during the fetal stage of life, enabling Gray to begin producing her own good blood. “It was an amazing milestone: CRISPR had apparently cured a genetic disease in humans.” The trial was led by CRISPR Therapeutics, founded by Emmanuel Charpentier (Isaacson, 245-247).