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The headline refers to GeekWire’s February 23, 2016 article about “My Struggle II,” the Season 10 finale of The X-Files. The episode draws on real gene-editing science, including CRISPR-Cas9 and the ADA gene, but turns those ideas into a fictional alien-conspiracy plot. The real technology can edit DNA; it cannot instantly rewrite everyone’s immune system as the episode suggests.
Spoilers for “My Struggle II” follow.
What CRISPR does in the episode
GeekWire’s 2016 article focused on the finale’s use of CRISPR as part of the series’ alien-conspiracy mythology. The script invokes the ability to target and alter DNA as a mechanism behind a fictional biological threat. Biologist Anne Simon of the University of Maryland, a scientific adviser to the show, helped inform its use of CRISPR and the ADA gene, according to GeekWire.
The episode folds this gene-editing idea into a broader fictional mix involving stem cells, vaccines, chemtrails and aluminum nanoparticles. That combination is part of the show’s conspiracy story, not evidence that these subjects are scientifically connected.
CRISPR, in plain English
CRISPR systems originated as part of microbial defenses against viruses. In a commonly used CRISPR-Cas9 approach, a designed guide RNA helps direct the Cas9 enzyme to a matching DNA sequence. Cas9 can cut DNA at or near that target. The cell then repairs the break, and its repair process can disrupt a gene or, with other methods and components, enable a sequence to be changed.
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- X Files: The Complete Series (All Seasons Collection 1-11) [Blu-Ray] [Region Free]
- X Files: The Complete Series (All Seasons Collection 1-11) [Blu-Ray] [Region Free]
“Molecular scissors” is a handy shorthand, but it can imply more control than the technology guarantees. A guide can direct an editor toward a chosen sequence, yet the outcome depends on delivery, the cells involved and how their DNA is repaired. Editing may be incomplete; unintended changes can also occur. The FDA treats CRISPR-Cas9 as one type of genome-editing technology, alongside other approaches, including base editing that can change DNA without a conventional double-strand cut. Its materials describe safety assessment as an important part of developing human genome-editing therapies: FDA overview and FDA safety-assessment guidance.
Why the story invokes ADA
ADA is the gene that provides instructions for making adenosine deaminase, an enzyme involved in purine metabolism and immune function. Severe deficiency of this enzyme can cause a form of severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), leaving a person highly vulnerable to infections. The condition is sometimes associated with the phrase “boy in the bubble,” though that shorthand does not capture every person’s experience.
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That real connection gives the episode a dramatic hook: disrupting an important immune-related gene could have serious consequences. But the show’s simplified premise is not a clinical model. A DNA cut does not produce an identical, immediate outcome in everyone. Effects depend on the precise genetic change, which cells are affected, how many are successfully edited, how the body responds and other individual factors.
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Where fiction takes over
In real medicine, “editing DNA” does not mean effortlessly changing every cell in a person’s body. Gene editing is not a single procedure with one predictable result, and gene therapy more broadly can work in ways that do not edit the genome. The episode’s population-scale, rapid biological threat belongs to science fiction; it should not be confused with regulated clinical genome editing.
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It also helps to distinguish somatic editing, which changes cells in a treated person and is not ordinarily inherited by their children, from germline editing, which could affect embryos or reproductive cells and potentially pass changes to future generations. The controversy surrounding embryo editing was a major part of the 2016 conversation, but it is not what approved CRISPR therapies do.
Why CRISPR was a fitting subject in 2016
By the time the episode aired, CRISPR-Cas9 had become a prominent, programmable gene-editing platform. Researchers were investigating possible uses in inherited disease, cancer, blindness, crops, biofuels and diagnostics. Its promise arrived alongside hard questions about safety, ethics and who should control the technology.
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In 2015, researchers reported editing non-viable human embryos, intensifying debate over heritable genetic changes and contributing to calls for international discussion. Patent litigation over CRISPR also drew attention. The technology was real, powerful-sounding and still surrounded by open questions—an effective ingredient for a show built around mistrust and hidden agendas. But the episode was not a forecast of a workable way to engineer a contagious genetic catastrophe.
What has changed since the episode
CRISPR is no longer only a research prospect. In December 2023, the FDA approved Casgevy, the first FDA-approved therapy using CRISPR/Cas9, for certain patients with sickle-cell disease. The agency later expanded its approval to patients aged 2 and older for the relevant sickle-cell disease and transfusion-dependent beta-thalassemia indications, in an announcement dated July 1, 2026. See the 2023 approval announcement and 2026 expansion announcement.
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Casgevy is a highly specific, intensive treatment—not an injection that edits a person’s whole body. A patient’s blood stem cells are collected, edited outside the body, then returned after medical preparation. Treatment involves manufacturing, conditioning, infusion and monitoring, with substantial risks. It is intended for defined diseases and eligible patients, not for changing inherited traits or instantly altering immunity across a population.
The FDA continues to address how developers assess genome-editing safety, including off-target edits and unintended changes to genome integrity. Its 2026 recommendations on sequencing-based safety assessment are draft guidance, not final regulations. FDA materials on human gene therapies incorporating genome editing and safety assessment set out the agency’s regulatory focus.
The contrast is the useful way to watch the episode today: The X-Files recognized that gene editing could matter enormously, but its conspiracy mechanism is invented. Real CRISPR medicine is narrower, slower and more complex—and already has a place in treatment.
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