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Researchers attending gene therapy meetings over the past couple years were liable to bump into a svelte, graying scientist explaining in emphatic, Russian-inflected English that the U.S. was wasting the grand potential of CRISPR gene editing.

Fyodor Urnov, the scientist in question, estimates he gave the talk 30 to 40 times: to fellow researchers, pharma executives, Food and Drug Administration officials, congressional staff, journalists, patient advocates. “Anyone who would listen,” he says.

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The problem was one of scale. Sure, for-profit companies were developing cures for a small handful of genetic diseases, such as sickle cell disease. But there were hundreds of devastating conditions that CRISPR might be able to cure but that no entity was seriously working on.   

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