From good to great

The discovery of a new CRISPR-associated endonuclease for gene editing has proponents touting it as a simpler and faster system that could replace CRISPR/Cas9, but many experts doubt the finding will be a game changer. Instead, they say the new enzyme is just one of many valuable but incremental advances the emerging field can expect to see.

The findings were described in a study from the lab of CRISPR/Cas9 pioneer Feng Zhang published last month in Cell, which identified Cpf1 as a bacteria-derived endonuclease similar to Cas9, and showed it can cut targeted DNA sequences in human cells. (See Distillery, page 23)...