CRISPR goes retro(n)

Could a new technique – Retron Library Recombineering – consign CRISPR to the history books? No regular BioTechniques reader will be unfamiliar with both the promise and challenges posed by CRISPR. Many efforts have been made to overcome CRISPR’s potential off-target effects, as exemplified by our recent coverage of CRISPRoff. The latest tool tackling CRISPRs foibles is Retron Library Recombineering (RLR) – another ‘bait-and-switch’ gene-editing method that seemingly avoids some of the problems associated with CRISPR while allowing millions of genetic experiments to be performed simultaneously. Recombineering is no stranger to the lab – the simple method sees the introduction...