Germany stands out as the European country most interested in fostering an informed debate on CRISPR many uses. Today an interdisciplinary group of experts from the German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina) has published a Discussion Paper entitled “Ethical and legal assessment of genome editing in research on human cells”. Experiments involving human embryos are prohibited by law in the country but the document suggests a possible compromise. Research should be permitted on “orphaned” embryos created for reproductive purposes but no longer going to be used for reproduction. In February the German academy co-organized a meeting on edited plants, discussing what kind of regulation would be suitable. In 2005 they published a statement on “The opportunities and limits of genome editing” and another one on molecular plant breeding. According to a Leopoldina official press-release, the annual assembly “will be intensively addressing the topic of genome editing” later this year.
CRISPR ’s debut in the cultural programming of the Italian television occurred at “
The German publication Greenpeace Magazin interviewed Urs Niggli, the director of 
This week the royal couple of science journals have turned the spotlight on CRISPR’s potential for agriculture. “Genome editors take on crops” and “CRISPR, microbes and more are joining the war against crop killers” are the titles respectively chosen by 
By Antonio Polito
CRISPR is radically changing the way researchers work, by allowing better, faster, and cheaper experiments. This blog will tell, among other things, how leading labs are using the most popular technique for genome editing. Let the dance begin with the Laboratory of Stem Cell Biology and Pharmacology of Neurodegenerative Diseases of the University of Milan (
Stunning, revolutionary, momentous: these are some of the adjectives sprinkled by leading international journals over CRISPR. In the last few years the new technique of genetic modification has been mentioned in hundreds of studies, not counting the articles published in the lay press. The keyword CRISPR (pronounced 
Refining, chiselling, correcting DNA letter by letter. You can do it simultaneously in dozens of selected sites, or in one place, leaving no trace. A new kind and powerful technique is changing the face of biology. Cheap and easy to handle but precise as a laser. It allows reaserchers to change living organisms as they wish, by carefully targeting their DNA. It doesn’t bombard them by means of random mutations, it doesn’t cut and sew the DNA in a traditional way, as in the past. Will it transform medicine, agriculture and the world as we know it? Enthusiasm and fears are chasing each other, and this book explains the unfolding revolution. Welcome to the age of CRISPR. 
CRISPeR FRENZY 