---
title: "The biggest biotech discovery of the century is about to change medicine forever"
description: "When they initially crafted molecules that could enter a microbe and precisely snip its DNA at a location of the researchers’ choosing, they had no idea of its enormous potential."
date: "2015-02-19"
modified: "2015-08-13"
authors:
  - name: "Oana Stefanescu"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/kidco"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-biggest-biotech-discovery-of-the-century-is-about-to-change-medicine-forever"
categories:
  - "Health & Medicine"
  - "Medical"
  - "RX and Medicine"
tags:
  - "nanotech"
---

# The biggest biotech discovery of the century is about to change medicine forever

![Default Futurism featured image](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Futurism-Filler-Image.jpg>)

- In January 2013, the scientists went one step further: They cut out a particular piece of DNA in human cells and replaced it with another one. In the same month, separate teams of scientists at Harvard University and the Broad Institute reported similar success with the gene-editing tool.
- A scientific stampede commenced, and in just the past two years, researchers have performed hundreds of experiments on CRISPR. Their results hint that the technique may fundamentally change both medicine and agriculture.
- Thanks to the speed of CRISPR research, the accolades have come quickly. Last year MIT Technology Review called CRISPR "the biggest biotech discovery of the century."