For a decade after its discovery, CRISPR gene editing was stuck on the cusp of transforming medicine. Then, in 2023, scientists started using it on sickle-cell disease, and Victoria Gray, a patient who lived with constant pain—like lightning inside her body, she has said—got the first-ever FDA-approved CRISPR gene-editing treatment. Her symptoms vanished; so did virtually everyone else’s in the clinical trial she was a part of.This year, the technology has started to press beyond its next barrier. Most of the 8 million people globally who have sickle-cell disease share…
