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The short history of CRISPR gene editing in humans has, with rare exception, been a history of triumphant progress: A patient apparently cured of sickle cell in 2019, six patients with toxic DNA knocked out of their livers last year, another six patients with a different strand of toxic liver DNA knocked out last week. 

The next era of CRISPR may not be so smooth. 

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Curative as these interventions appear to be, they represent the earliest iterations of what the Nobel prize-winning technology might be able to do. Companies, academic programs, and even a couple of clinical trials have launched in the last few years to develop more complex CRISPR machinery that can slide into harder-to-reach places and perform more dexterous operations once there.

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