Most spectacularly evident in 2013 was how easily new techniques caught fire and spread to labs around the globe. Even researchers who don’t specialize in methods development are able to rapidly adopt—and improve upon—new approaches to answering their questions, and the result is an acceleration of progress and a cross pollination of disciplines. Here are some of the most exciting advances in the life sciences from 2013.
JINSONG LI
What can’t CRISPR do?
Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, or CRISPR, is a tool used for genome editing. In tandem with an enzyme called Cas9, the CRISPR approach allows scientists to write the genetic code any which way they want. A few years ago, CRISPR was known only for its role in immunity in bacteria and archaea. ...
