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Luciano Marraffini is a Professor at The Rockefeller University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. A microbiologist interested in how bacteria function, he heads the Laboratory of Bacteriology. His research group examines CRISPR-Cas systems that help bacteria and other microbes acquire immunity against invading viruses. Comprising six types and found in various bacterial species, these systems employ diverse mechanisms to capture and degrade viral DNA and RNA. The acronym CRISPR stands for clustered, regularly interspaced, short palindromic repeats. Emphasizing the “regularly interspaced” characteristic of these systems, Luciano delves into the importance of the intervening sequences between the repeats called spacers and explains that these snippets of viral genomes contain information about bacterial evolution. Luciano’s efforts to understand the mechanisms of CRISPR at the molecular level spans more than a decade, and he shares his experiences following his instincts and performing experiments on a staphylococcal CRISPR system during graduate school. With the support of his PhD and postdoctoral advisers, he went on to author seminal publications in the field, and his contributions have led to a gene-editing revolution. A native of Argentina, Luciano reflects on how his family life has intertwined with his scientific career, and continuing to conduct research at the frontier of the CRISPR field, he expresses that he’s happy that he gets to do what he loves to do every day.