First U.S. Patients Treated With CRISPR As Gene-Editing Human Trials Get Underway

Scientists have long hoped CRISPR — a technology that allows scientists to make very precise modification to DNA — could eventually help cure many diseases. And now scientists are taking tangible first steps to make that dream a reality.

For example, NPR has learned that a U.S. CRISPR study that had been approved for cancer in at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia has finally started. A university spokesman Monday confirmed for the first time that two patients had been treated using CRISPR.