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 7624 / SEEDWORLD.COM SEPTEMBER 2016 “We already know that soil composition and precipitation and many other things can vary across a single state, much less the whole U.S. or the world. What if seeds did also?” he says. “What if instead of farmers selecting from a bunch of ready- made seeds, they could pick and choose what traits they want that they know will be helpful for their specific region or their own farm? That would be amazing. If companies don’t do it, I hope it will be easy enough that farmers can do it themselves.” The ODIN is expanding to include plant genetic engineering supplies, and Zayner sees the business landscape changing and tipping the scales in the favor of farmers. “Farming was for a long time democratized. Not that it isn’t now, but genetic engineering has kind of been monopolized by a few larger corporations. This is good because some research and development can get done that many farmers might not be interested in doing, but it’s bad because the people working their land and in the fields can contribute a lot, but right now they’re often not able to,” he says. “One of the big questions I have as a genetic engineer is, ‘How can I make some of the more complicated techniques like CRISPR accessible to everyone? How do I help farmers take their genetic engineering to the next level?’” Software Solution Zayner isn’t the only young scientist pushing the boundaries of what CRISPR can do. Jonathan Gomes Selman, who just gradu- ated from New York’s Ithaca High School, is making a name for himself by bringing computer science to the world of genomics. Last year, still in Grade 11, he did an internship with the Boyce Thompson Institute where he entered the laboratory of asso- ciate professor Lukas Mueller and worked with postdoctoral researcher Noe Fernandez. He set out to create a computer program to improve the efficiency of CRISPR. Gomes Selman designed a piece of software that makes the CRISPR technology even more precise by allowing researchers to simultaneously target a whole family of genes at one time. “What I love about CRISPR is if you look at its basics, it’s quite simple. That’s what’s great about it compared to other genome editing techniques. It’s just a protein combined with a guide RNA sequence you can easily design with computer programs,” he says. That realization was a big one, Fernandez says. “Many people were interested in Jonathan’s project. They asked us if we will continue developing this software and if we could create a public web tool so that they could use it.” Gomes Selman’s findings were used to help another researcher, the Boyce Thompson Institute’s Thomas Jacobs, better understand the tomato genome. “This technique can very easily be applied to plants. Plants are a lot easier than animals for scientists to modify,” Gomes Selman notes. “I got to see a little bit of how he was using CRISPR to study the tomato and make alterations and learn how to make a great yielding tomato plant.” Words of Caution While the prospect of honing the CRISPR technology has many running to innovate, others urge caution. David Relman, a professor of infectious diseases and co-director of Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, has co- authored a paper urging the U.S. government to build a better governance regime for oversight of risky biological research. “We’ve got an increasing number of unusually risky experi- ments, and we need to be more thoughtful and deliberate in how we oversee this work,” says Relman, who has been critical of Zayner’s DIY CRISPR kits and other initiatives to bring technol- ogy like CRISPR into people’s homes. But Zayner notes his bacteria and yeast kits are perfectly safe, and says safety concerns in this regard are often overblown. He adds that in the past, other world-changing technologies were often feared as well. “Personally, I can't help but think about what happened when technologies or knowledge were democratized and what happened — the printing press, electricity, computers. I imagine genetic engineering will be the same,” he says. —with files from Steve Fyffe and Patricia Waldron SW “What I love about CRISPR is if you look at its basics, it’s quite simple. That’s what’s great about it compared to other genome editing techniques.” — Jonathan Gomes Selman CRISPR BRINGS OUT POTENTIAL IN THE TOMATO The CRISPR genome editing technology is helping researchers use the tomato to help fight plant disease. After developing new software tools extending the existing capabilities of CRISPR, New York-based high school student Jonathan Gomes Selman was able to design multiple guide sequences for the Receptor Like Cytoplasmic Kinase (RLCK) gene family of the tomato plant; the gene family plays an important role in the plant’s immune responses. His research has helped scientists at the Boyce Thompson Institute study the tomato protein kinase family by utilizing CRISPR/Cas9 structures. They plan to use it to create models for the tomato with different genes from the tomato kinase family silenced, to study the functionality of kinase genes and their impacts on plant pathogen interactions. Overall, extending the functionality of current CRISPR tools enables scientists to conduct a greater range of experiments when researching genes through genetic manipulation. Source: Jonathan Gomes Selman