Last month, the revolutionary gene-splicing technology with a startup sounding name was back in the news.

CRISPR was at the center of a contentious patent battle between a Harvard-affiliated research center and the University of California.

In the end, the patent in question was awarded to the Massachusetts-based Broad Institute.

That is our peg, or our excuse, for running two really good interviews that we want to remind you of.

Research facilities and universities often compete for new patents and funding,

and they keep their discoveries secret until publication so they're not scooped.

Biologist Kevin Esvelt, leader of MIT's Media Labs' sculpting Evolution Group,

says this culture of secrecy is not only inefficient, it's dangerous. Writing in nature

last summer, Esfeldt urged the scientific community to open all experiments to public scrutiny,

beginning with the revolutionary and potentially world-changing gene editing research that he helped

advance.

When I spoke to Esfeld last summer, he described how CRISPR works.

So CRISPR is best thought of as a molecular scalpel that can be programmed to very precisely

cut and therefore to edit any DNA sequence. And it works because when you cut a DNA sequence,

the cell needs to fix it,

because the next time it replicates, it needs to have made another copy. So how can you use it?

Why is it good for mankind? Well, what it means is that we can cut a gene that we want to edit

and introduce an edited version of that same gene. The cell will use our version to repair the damage.

In other words, it makes CRISPR a bit like a pencil.

It lets us erase the original sequence and write in a new one.

And thereby cure certain diseases?

So lots of blood-borne or immune diseases,

...