CRISPR-Cas system, a form of adaptive immunity in prokaryotes that was relatively recently discovered and is being used as an alternative method for gene splicing/regulation. It also opens up all kinds of doors as far as our understanding of bacteriophage interactions and, potentially, improved success with phage therapy. Also bioprecipitation. Bacteria that flake off of plant leaves, get taken up into the atmosphere by simple wind currents, and that then act as nucleation sites for ice precipitation and subsequent rain or snow. It's not only a brilliant reproductive mechanism, it's been found to significantly influence patterns of precipitation on the ground. There's a lot of work being done into possible ways to utilize these bacteria both for plant health (some species that do this are equivalent to our natural microbiome, they don't harm the plant and outcompete potential pathogens) and for influencing local weather patterns in places like Africa. I'm a microbiologist in training (unsurprisingly).
I haven't seen either of those, but they're both really impressive. Now that we're pretty well able to splice genes into genomes, regulation of those spliced genes is becoming more and more important. There was a recent article I read about using XNA based genes in GMO plants so that in the absence of human-supplied nucleotides particular genes can't be reproduced, this brings to mind various methods of controlling not just the reproduction/lateral gene transfer, but the expression of the genes when it's most beneficial to the plants (or in particular tissues that need it the most and that we don't end up consuming).
We recently had a journal club where a colleague who works on Zebrafish introduced us to the CRISPR-Cas system. I had that same feeling of excitement that I had after watching Interstellar. This deep feeling of "we can accomplish ANYTHING" Gives me shivers every time
I was invited to attend the weekly lab meetings of a lab on campus that's doing some interesting research into the physical structure of Cascade (CRISPR-associated complex for antiviral defence) and Csy-complexes. The lab unsurprisingly doesn't have any vacancies, but it'll be great to learn more about how the research is done and to keep up to date on its progress. Here's some interesting reading: http://www.montana.edu/mbi/facultyandstaff/wiedneheft/publications.html