Jan 28, 2021 10:10am Scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that the gene editing tool TALEN is up to five times more efficient than CRISPR-Cas9 in parts of the genome called heterochromatin. (LionFive/Pixabay) CRISPR-Cas9 has made waves in the biomedical world as a revolutionary gene editing tool, even garnering a 2020 Nobel Prize in chemistry. But it has its limitations. A research team from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) showed that another gene editing technique called TALEN is up to five times more efficient than CRISPR-Cas9 in a highly compact form of DNA called heterochromatin, according to results published in Nature Communications.