[DaveWalk]

Absolutely. The movement from discovery (from the unsexiest of all fields, bacteriology!) to a reliable tool is unprecedented[1] in the scientific realm. For my money it is easily on track for a Nobel Prize: it allows mankind to examine with precision unknown just years before.

[1] I see a parallel to short hairpin RNA gene silencing (shRNA, a.k.a. RNA interference, RNAi). A breakthrough discovery, at use at the bench in less then a decade, and an easy clinch for the Nobel Prize. CRISPR has gone even faster.

[dnautics]

> The movement from discovery (from the unsexiest of all fields, bacteriology!) to a reliable tool is unprecedented.

Uhm, restriction enzymes?

for the uninitiated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_enzyme

(basically, restriction enzymes are what CRISPR is basically set to replace for complex systems/organisms where restriction enzymes are too weak; although for simple systems restriction enzymes are waaay simpler)

[dluan]

I really wonder if it's just a matter of time before you get clans of technology in bio. Akin to the PHP vs Ruby vs Node vs Go evolution.

At the end of the day, they are just tools, and tools however technically shiny, don't by themselves deliver better end products.

[dnautics]

That's already happened with NG DNA assembly. PIPES cloning vs. Gibson Assembly vs. ColdFusion, etc.

In the case of restriction enzymes, though, they've been around in continuous use since something like the 70s, they're very well characterized, NEB has had a continuous research program where they've been optimized out the wazoo.

Technically speaking they are fundamentally simpler than CRISPR (one component, vs. 2). They also are more generally useful when your genetic manipulation is done outside the cell. So there's a clear tooling difference in CRISPR/RE. Most people who use CRISPR, will use REs in the process of make the DNA piece they're putting in alongside the CRISPR. You'd be a fool to use CRISPR in E. Coli or Yeast.

So 'clan'ing ain't gonna really happen here.