AIChE Cleveland Section January 2021 CRISPR, A Molecular Scissor, Reshapes the Future of Bioengineering and Biotechnology

For generations, the field of bioengineering and biotechnology has been defined by the discoveries from the field of biology. Now, owing to the transformative discovery of CRISPR Cas systems (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020), a programmable molecular scissor, scientists have expanded this unique capability toward various bioengineering applications from synthetic biology to biomedical devices. Moreover, the marriage of this fundamental biological capability with engineering disciplines has shifted the pendulum of biotech research from “what we can discover” to “what we can construct”. With the continuing developments of such interdisciplinary research infrastructure, a whole new world of problems in biology, medicine and healthcare begin to be approachable.