We found that CAS9 has the ability to make a double-stranded break in DNA at sites that are programmed by a small RNA molecule. What was so important was that we could really show how the CAS9 protein worked.

As mechanistic biologists, we are hoping that by understanding how the virus works at the molecular level, we will be able to predict with more accuracy how it will evolve.

Understanding how Cas9 is able to locate specific 20-base-pair target sequences within genomes that are millions to billions of base pairs long may enable improvements to gene targeting and genome editing efforts in bacteria and other types of cells.

One can envisage taking cells from a patient with sickle-cell anaemia or an inherited blood disorder and using the Cas9 system to fix the underlying genetic cause of the disease by putting those cells back into the patient and allowing them to make copies of themselves to support the patient's blood.

If you can write DNA, you're no longer limited to 'what is' but to what you could make.

I was kind of a nerdy, geeky type. And I loved math. People teased me about it. I felt pretty much like an outcast.