CRISPR, stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. It's a genetic engineering tool biologists use to target specific stretches of genetic code to target and edit DNA at precise locations. With this technology genetic engineers can manipulate genetic information in living cells. CRISPR is the referential name given to a innate bacterial defense system with unique and consistent markers usually just referred to as "Spacer sequences" these stretches of RNA are capable of guiding engineers to a matching section of DNA. Once found CRISPR is capable of binding the sections of DNA and RNA and cutting it using an enzyme, this allows us to study the expression of genetic material and manipulate it. What's so breathtaking about this breakthrough, is it allows us to quickly and easily find and isolate all the "typos" and useless sequencing within a strand of DNA and isolate it. This may allow scientists in the future to eliminate certain kinds of cancer and genetic disease. Hope this brief explanation helps you a bit, you can always visit www.sciencemag.org/topic/crispr to learn more.
