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By Kuebi = Armin Kübelbeck and Sponk [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Until now CRISPR has been used or known to be used to edit DNA specifically. This new advance has modified CRISPR to allow for editing of RNA. This opens up a new exciting field.

The advantage to editing RNA is that these sorts of edits are not necessarily permanent. 

> Instead of snipping DNA, this type of CRISPR targets another of the major biological molecules found in all forms of life, RNA. Most of the time, RNA is used inside the body to help DNA build proteins. And proteins play an important role in causing diseases. There are some advantages to editing RNA instead of DNA, says study co-author David Cox, a PhD student in the Zhang Lab at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, which has been doing pioneering work on CRISPR. RNA is constantly being made and recycled inside cells, so an RNA edit is not permanent.

In my opinion there is a lot to be learned before this can offer clinically significant benefit. At the same time with the growing ability of computation and AI it is only a matter of time before we unravel the secrets of RNA/DNA and once this is achieved we will be able to improve the state of life as we know it.  With the help of AI, life will perhaps become programmable on a direct level using techniques like CRISPR.

These advances open the door to what is called synthetic biology. Synthetic biology could represent the state of the art in artificial vegan meats (cruelty free food), could represent new fuel sources which are renewable and environmentally friendly, could even result in new domesticated pets with genes modified on a direct level rather than through the slow selective breeding process.  

References
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1. https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/25/16543004/crispr-cas13-rna-gene-editing-disease-treatment