A Comprehensive Timeline of Human Gene Editing

We’ll be the first to admit that the human gene editing space is developing at breakneck speed and is hard to follow. Genaerrative wants to make it as easy as possible for you to catch up and keep up to date on news. As such, we’ve created this rolling timeline that we will frequently update with more detail and with the most current information on human gene editing.

Check out some of the most critical events in the timeline and how they are significant in today’s state of the art bioengineering. To start, we have outlined significant events in the discovery and application of the CRISPR/Cas technique for gene editing,

(* Disclaimer: Keeping up a “comprehensive” timeline is easier said than done. This page is a work in progress and will continue to be fleshed out as Genaerrative delves deeper into gene editing history and as new events take place to write history.)

Sources

1978

• First CRISPR Observation

2001

• CRISPR is Named

2005

• CRISPR Purpose Discovered (Background, Paper)

2012

• CRISPR Becomes A Tool
• CRISPR Used in Human Cells (Zhang, Church)

2015

• CRISPR Embryo Controversy (Paper, News)
• International Summit on Human Gene Editing

2017

• National Academies Report

General References

• The Heroes of CRISPR