Editing Nature to Fix our Failures | Noema Magazine

Note: Reporter Aryn Baker learned how to do CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing as a 2025 fellow in the MBL's Logan Science Journalism Program. Her hands-on biomedical research course was led by MBL scientists Joshua Rosenthal and Scott Chimileski.

It turns out playing God is neither difficult nor expensive. For about $2,000, I can go online and order a decent microscope, a precision injection rig, and a vial of enough CRISPR-Cas9 — an enzyme-based genome-editing tool — to genetically edit a few thousand fish embryos.

In addition to this, I’ll need the hand-eye coordination of a middling video game player, a stack of petri dishes and an insulated box that can keep my edited embryos in the Goldilocks temperature zone of around 28.5 degrees Celsius. In fact, the most difficult part is getting a reliable supply of freshly fertilized zebrafish embryos for my experiments. Fortunately, at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where I spent 10 days in May learning how to do genetic editing, it’s not a problem. The lab can produce a new batch every hour, so I have plenty to work with. Read the rest of the story here.

Source: Using Gene Editing to Fix our Failures | Noema Magazine