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Fifty years ago, microbiologists sparked the recombinant-DNA revolution with the discovery that bacteria have innate immune systems based on restriction enzymes. These enzymes bind and cut invading viral genomes at specific short sequences, and scientists rapidly repurposed them to cut and paste DNA in vitro — transforming biologic science and giving rise to the biotechnology industry.

Ten years ago, microbiologists discovered that bacteria also harbor adaptive immune systems, and subsequent progress has been breathtakingly rapid.1 Between 2005 and 2009, microbial genetic studies conducted by the laboratories of Mojica, Jansen, Koonin, Horvath, van der Oost, Sontheimer, Marraffini, and others revealed that bacteria have a programmable mechanism that directs nucleases, such as Cas9, to bind and cut invading DNA that matches “guide RNAs” encoded in specific bacterial genome regions containing clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR). In 2010 and 2011, Moineau and Charpentier defined the critical components of the CRISPR-Cas9 system, and Siksnys showed that it could be reconstituted in new bacterial species. Biochemical studies in 2012, by Charpentier and Doudna and by Siksnys, confirmed these results in vitro. In...