CRISPR is a mechanism by which some species of bacteria and archea can edit a virus out of their genome -- it&#x27;s essentially a small immune system.  CRISPR is &quot;hot&quot; right now because of the potential to use it to edit arbitrary genomes.  Bear in mind that the technique has a <i>long</i> way to go.  It&#x27;s more or less impossible to do it right now without causing a lot of side effects elsewhere in the genome.<p>As with most science, this has taken a long time and been the result of work by many, many scientists.  Some scientists have big egos and are fighting about who the &quot;real genius&quot; is.  Furthermore, it&#x27;s widely thought that there&#x27;s going to be a lot of money in this technique, if you can get a patent on it.<p>TL;DR; cool and potentially very useful science happened, now big egos, big greed, and people who would rather get rich and win a Nobel prize than share the discovery and its benefits with the world are having a fight about it.