Zeitschrift für Bioingenieurwesen und biomedizinische Wissenschaft

Genome editing has always been a heated topic among scientists who are driven by developing tools with desired functions. Discovered from bacteria immune system against virus, the CRISPR-based technologies demonstrated remarkable advantages over precedents and have shown the potential to revolutionize fundamental research in biology. People keep improving and diversifying the functions of CRISPR-Cas9 by reengineering the active molecules. The repurposed applications include gene expression regulation, epigenetic modification, chromatin bioengineering etc. This article will provide an overview starting from a brief history of genome-targeted manipulation. It will also include key milestones people have achieved in different applications, as well as other areas to be potentially explored.