[Possiblyheroin]

Replacing an inadequately descriptive term with an incorrect term doesn't really help anyone.

There's an important point in the article about the cascade of unforseen consequences that occur when you start tweaking genes using CRISPR - and that it really isn't the straightforward silver bullet many make it out to be.

But the use of the word malware is there exclusively for the clickbaity headline.

[vikramkr]

I'd argue that the molecular scissors argument is actually adequately descriptive and holds up to a bit of metaphor overextending. You totally can cut and paste gene sequences using CRISPR. That's the whole point of Homology Directed Repair (HDR). And much like actual sets and crafts, it is a lot easier to make crude cuts all over the place than to elegantly glue pieces back together into a useful end product. HDR still suffers from low efficiency and so on. And the riot analogy for alzheimers is great, but it doesn't require you to give up the scissor analogy either. You arent stopping a riot with scissors, while on the other ha d you totally could stop a riot with malware (shut down every messaging service somehow so that there isn't any way to coordinate).

[toufka]

The most important part of CRISPR (Cas9) is its ability to colocalize with specific, arbitrary DNA sequences. It has a second function, which exists is many many other proteins and is not special at all - to cut double-stranded DNA. And in fact, that it cuts, is not actually desirable most of the time. Some of the most interesting uses of Cas9 actually try to get rid of its ability to cut the DNA (while retaining its ability to home in on specific DNA sequences).

I'm all for metaphors, but don't be afraid to shift them around when you think of a better one. (and 'malware' is not a better one...)

[Possiblyheroin]

Fair point.