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Huberman and Krummel agree scientific progress often involves long periods of frustration and 'dead ends,' with breakthroughs like CRISPR or GLP-1 agonists emerging suddenly from curiosity-driven basic research. These 'orthogonal' discoveries often arise unexpectedly, not from direct problem-solving attempts.
Francisco Mojica spent the 1990s studying strange palindromic repeats (CRISPR) in Haloferax mediterranei from Spanish salt flats. In 2003, he linked these spacers to bacteriophage DNA, revealing an adaptive immune system.
Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier demonstrated in 2012 that the CRISPR-Cas9 system could be programmed to edit DNA at specific genomic locations, fundamentally enabling gene therapy.
Doudna and Charpentier received the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for CRISPR-Cas9, which led to the 2023 FDA approval of Casgevy, the first CRISPR-based therapy for sickle cell disease.
Seth notes that Bitaxe has become an accessible entry point for new home miners to engage with the network, particularly for those who missed the earlier S9 and China Exodus eras, allowing participation without the heavy investment of full-scale ASICs.