Today, we’re diving into one of the most exciting breakthroughs in genetic science—an expansion of the CRISPR-Cas9 toolbox that could change medicine, agriculture, and environmental protection. CRISPR is a gene editing technology that can edit humans, plants and more. It might just be the key in our fight against the warming climate.

Scientists from Duke University, led by Gabriel L. Butterfield, Dahlia Rohm, Avery Roberts, and Charles A. Gersbach, have discovered new versions of the Cas9 enzyme, which could make gene editing even more powerful. This research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), was contributed by Rodolphe Barrangou and reviewed by Luciano A. Marraffini and Feng Zhang. But what does this all mean for us? Let’s break it down in a way that’s easy to understand.

Contact:

Email - [email protected]

Instagram/X - theenvironmentalreview

Citations

Gabriel L. Butterfield, Dahlia Rohm, Avery Roberts, Matthew A. Nethery, Anthony J. Rizzo, Daniel J. Morone, Lisa Garnier, Nahid Iglesias, Rodolphe Barrangou, Charles A. Gersbach. Characterization of diverse Cas9 orthologs for genome and epigenome editing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2025; 122 (11) DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2417674122