Scandals aside, CRISPR is hard

The rapid rise of CRISPR as the world’s preferred genome-editing technology is intrinsically tied to how comparatively easy it makes the process of cutting and pasting DNA. And last year’s headline-grabbing CRISPR babies scandal illustrated just how easily that technology could be misused.

But as Casebia Therapeutics CEO Jim Burns writes in STAT, don’t let that distract from just how difficult it’s going to be to translate CRISPR’s sweeping promise into actual treatments that can be safely administered.

First you’ve got to get your copy-pasted genetic lettering to its target, which likely means relying on harmless viruses or tiny particles made up of fat. And if that works, you’ll have to figure out how to manufacture a genome-editing treatment in huge quantities, without sacrificing safety and reliability.

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