The Download: Cutting cholesterol with CRISPR, and the James Webb Space Telescope's first image

The news: A volunteer in New Zealand has become the first person to undergo DNA editing in order to lower their blood cholesterol, a step that may foreshadow wide use of the technology to prevent heart attacks. How did they do it?: The experiment involved injecting a version of the gene-editing tool CRISPR in order to modify a single letter of DNA in the patient's liver cells. According to the company, that tiny edit should be enough to permanently lower a person's levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol, the fatty molecule that causes arteries to clog and harden with time. While the patient had an inherited risk for extra-high cholesterol and was already suffering from heart disease, the company believes the same technique could eventually be used to prevent cardiovascular disease.