HacDC CRISPR

Project CRISPR

CRISPR is a groundbreaking new gene editing technique in microbiology. In brief, ten years ago it was found that bacteria possess a self-defense mechanism against viruses that includes a virus definition database and a gene removal mechanism. The bacteria chromosomal DNA contains the inactive DNA sequences of harmful viruses. The defense mechanism reads the chromosomal DNA and compares it to the known virus sequence. If a match is found, the sequence is excised. This mechanism can therefore be exploited to excise any gene by replacing the virus definition sequences in the CRISPR sequence with the target sequence. Once the DNA is cut, a new gene can be inserted with reasonable success. The cost of this technique is dramatically reduced from pre-existing gene editing techniques.

Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR

Activities and Goals

HacDC Project CRISPR is our effort to learn about, perform and teach CRISPR genetic editing at HacDC. To begin the project, we’ve ordered a Do-It-Yourself CRISPR Kit, which includes (supposedly) all the tools and ingredients needed to perform a CRISPR procedure a few times. We’ll hold a few events at HacDC to go through the procedure and document our experience. Eventually we’ll create a guide that older high school kids can follow. This project also explores interest in microbiology and genetics at HacDC. We're just starting! Keep an eye out for CRISPR events in our MeetUp page, on the mailing list and our Blabber discussion forum.