You know you’ve struck marketing gold when a brand becomes a so-called “proprietary eponym.” Need to blow your nose? Grab a Kleenex. Track some sand from the beach onto your floor? Hoover it up. In biology, Crispr is the proprietary eponym of the moment. The gene-editing technique is so inexpensive and easy to use that, in just four years, it’s become a ubiquitous tool in labs across the world. And soon, it could jump from bench-top workhorse to human therapeutic.

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