Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 7622 / SEEDWORLD.COM SEPTEMBER 2016 “I think it is a really amazing and cool application. Genetically engineering plants is hard, but not as hard as people think, and I think people like farmers or ag people are really primed to work on this stuff because they have always been experimenters and DIYers,” he says. “CRISPR provides great opportunity because it does simplify things a bit.” CRISPR is an acronym for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, which Zayner says “is just a long name” to say that scientists found a protein that can make highly specific cuts in DNA. That protein, Cas9, gives scientists an unprecedented ability to edit and engineer DNA. It’s already being used to great effect in plant breeding. Earlier this year, DuPont Pioneer announced waxy corn hybrids as its first commercial agricultural product developed through the application of CRISPR-enabled advanced breeding technol- ogy. This “next generation” of corn is expected to be available to U.S. growers within five years, pending field trials and regulatory reviews. It’s an example of how CRISPR is ushering in a new era for agriculture and new products for farmers. But Zayner feels the day will eventually arrive when CRISPR becomes “democratized” enough that even farmers themselves will use it to create new products. Jonathan Gomes Selman has designed software that improves upon the CRISPR technology. PHOTO BY CHRISTIANNE MCMILLAN WHITE Josiah Zayner believes his do-it-yourself CRISPR kit project has the potential to take the DIY genomics concept much further than the kitchen table.