With materials and instructions from the kit, I will introduce CRISPR into the bacteria cells, and use it to rewrite a tiny part of their DNA, creating genetically altered cells that happily thrive on streptomycin. coli so that it can grow on an antibiotic called streptomycin, which normally kills bacteria. The idea behind the kit experiment is quite simple. This means you can insert DNA where you want to in the genome-you just need to know the organism’s genetic sequence of your desired target area. And, if you add new DNA, the cell may incorporate it while fixing the cut. Since CRISPR repeatedly goes back and slices the DNA again after the cell mends it, the gene eventually breaks, or, in technical terms, gets knocked out. If it is not a good match, Cas9 and guide RNA fall off and try again somewhere else.” When it finds the right sequence, the Cas9 protein slices the DNA at that precise spot.Īt this point, if you leave the cell alone, it will usually mend CRISPR’s cut-but it will occasionally also make a mistake in the repair process, breaking a gene or other parts of the genome. “Cas9 opens up the DNA, it separates the strands of the double helix in a very small area, and allows the guide RNA to pair with one of the strands,” explains Dana Carroll, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Utah. To do this, CRISPR searches the organism’s DNA for a certain sequence-specifically, the one encoded by the guide RNA, which holds the inverse sequence of your target DNA. Put them together, and they create a tool you can use to tweak an organism’s genome. CUT AND SPLICEĬRISPR stands for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats.” The CRISPR system is made up of two components: a protein called Cas9 and a guide RNA, a string of nucleic acid molecules with a certain genetic code. I attempted to find answers to all these questions myself, starting with the plate of bacteria in the kitchen of my San Francisco apartment. But I wondered: Is CRISPR so easy that even amateurs like me can make meaningful contributions to science? And also, does this new technique make gene editing so accessible that we need to worry about DIY scientists cooking up pandemic viruses in their basements? If you Google ‘DIY CRISPR,’ stories such as “What Happens If Someone Uses this DIY Gene Hacking Kit to Make Mutant Bacteria?” pop up. You won’t find me swabbing my cheek cells for DNA or tinkering with yeast in a lab on the weekend.
I am not a DIY scientist, much less a professional scientist. Biologists will also tell you that CRISPR is very easy to use. It’s cheap and effective, and in many cases, it works much better than older methods for making genetic modifications. Ask any biologist, and they’ll likely tell you that CRISPR is revolutionary.
The technique may help researchers engineer drought-resistance crops, develop better drugs, cure genetic disorders, eradicate infectious diseases and much more. A couple inches probably would not stop the bugs, but I figured it couldn’t hurt.ĬRISPR–Cas9 (or CRISPR, for short) has given scientists a powerful way to make precise changes to DNA-in microbes, plants, mice, dogs and even in human cells. I nudged all the food up against the fridge wall, and left a two-inch border around the plate of living cells-a no man’s land between the microbes and our dinner. But honestly, I had no clue what I was doing. The label says ‘non-pathogenic,’” I replied, trying to sound assuring. coli bacteria-which came as part of the DIY CRISPR–Cas9 kit I bought online-into our fridge next to cartons of eggs, strawberry jam, bottles of beer and a block of cheese.
He cringed as I knelt down and stuffed a plate of E. “We aren’t going to get sick, are we?” my roommate Brett asked me.