[teekert]

It is much easier to wreck things with Crisper (in this case the regulatory region that turns of fetal hemoglobin) that to really go in and alter one or a couple of specific base pairs. What they did is nice but the latter would be the holy grail.

[patall]

If the holy grail is only a few years away, then yes. Normal CRISPR editing rely on non-homologous-end-joining (NHEJ) which is not an absolutely exact process. However, there are now base editors (look up prime editing) that edit a single position with very high specificity. Takes a few years from basic research to the clinics but they will be everywhere soon.

[DubiousPusher]

By "holy grail" you mean it would produce a better result or just satisfy someone's OCD?

[Tuna-Fish]

"Holy grail" not because of how it would work on this particular disease, but because it would allow basically limitless editing of any gene in any living human, allowing us to fix all hereditary genetic diseases, and do a whole lot of other things besides.