At the onset of 2016 a good news for Genetic diseases: CRISPR/Cas9 is opening new avenues: The positive results of the first animal tests of the new promising technique of modifying the ADN using with CRISPR/Cas9 to treat Duchenne Muscular Distrophy (CRISPR/Cas9 is a sort of cut/copy/paste/insert tool as we know on text software, that works for ADN).

The way ahead is still long to become a human cure for some genetic diseases but somehow the direction is set, and no doubt the technique will be massively investigated by research teams the world over.

Hiroshi Nishimasu, F. Ann Ran, Patrick D. Hsu, Silvana Konermann, Soraya I. Shehata, Naoshi Dohmae, Ryuichiro Ishitani, Feng Zhang, and Osamu Nureki – Crystal Structure of Cas9 in Complex with Guide RNA and Target DNA http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2014.02.001
the crystal structure of Streptococcus pyogenes Cas9 in complex with sgRNA and its target DNA at 2.5 A ˚ resolution.
Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0
Source: Wikipedia

Image: Nielsrca – based on: System Bio and Origene
graphical overview of CRISPR Cas9 plasmid construction
Licence: CC-BY-SA 4.0
Source: Wikipedia

Here below the links to the abstracts of the 3 publications published on the last day of 2015.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2015/12/29/science.aad5725
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2015/12/29/science.aad5143
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2015/12/29/science.aad5177