Modifying cancer cell genomes [The Big Idea]

On the quaint campus of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, Dr. Jason Sheltzer hopes to find a treatment for cancer. CRISPR, short for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, is a molecular tool that allows scientists to go in and modify specific cells. For the past three years, Sheltzer has been studying the cancer cell line. He hopes discoveries inside his lab will lead to clinical trials and ultimately improve treatment for cancer in the future.