Hey guys, Tony here.
What if I told you that there
was something that could potentially
cure stuff like cancer, AIDS, ALS?
What if I told you that this thing is
being developed, can you guess what it is?
It's CRISPR.
(Music)
Basically what CRISPR is,
is editing the DNA of any kind of cell to
make them do whatever you want them to.
So say a cell has a damaged or mutated DNA
that's making them duplicate really
rapidly, that's basically what cancer is.
By replacing that mutated DNA with the DNA
that you want, with the DNA that
a scientist has created that's regular,
that's normal, that won't do that,
it will stop doing it.
That's why this technique,
that's why CRISPR is so valuable,
because it's relatively cheap,
it's very accurate, and
it has the potential to do so much.
CRISPR doesn't have to be this big,
grand life-changing thing.
Actually, there's a guy in Oakland named
Josiah Zayner,
that runs a lab with a couple
of his friends out of his own garage.
He basically creates kits and teaches
people how to use CRISPR and other gene
editing techniques to make glowing beer.
All right, let's go check it out.
(Music)
(Knocking)
- Hey, man, how's it going?
- Hey, good, elbows, elbows,
I've got my gloves on.
So we are a startup and we're
run out of a house in Oakland, California.
And we took the whole bottom floor and
built it into a genetic engineering lab.
I worked at NASA for a few years,
in their synthetic biology program,
engineering organisms so that we could use
them to help people when they go to Mars,
or when they're in space a long time.
CRISPR is a new genetic engineering
technique that allows these genome edits
to be done, except really simply, and
it doesn't take a lot of time or money.
What we're trying to do is give people the
ability to genetically engineer something
that they can use in their every day life.
So like, modifying a yeast that they could
then use for brewing, or baking, or
something like that.
- So if it's that easy, do you mind maybe
doing a little experiment with me then?
- Yeah, yeah,
we can totally do an experiment.
Do some genetic editing right here.
Okay, so
we're gonna do a CRISPR experiment, and
I'm gonna show you how it's done.
Put on some gloves.
- Okay, so the experiment ended up being
really long, so
I'm just gonna explain this to you.
You first scrape off a little bit of
yeast and add it to a saline solution so
everything mixes well, see?
And then you add Cas9,
which is a protein that's gonna cleave off
the DNA that you don't want and
replace it with the one you do want.
And then you add a gRNA,
which is a guiding RNA that'll lead our
Cas9 to where we want it to go.
And then you add the template,
which is what you want the DNA
to look like after this is all finished.
In this case, our new DNA is gonna make
a protein that makes our yeast glow.
It's the same one that makes jellyfish
glow, that's so neat!
And then you put the whole solution into
a nice bath so
it stays at a nice temperature.
And then after a few days,
you smear it onto a plate,
and see what happens.
- See, this is before and after.
- Wow!
- I think the future of it is in
people's hands.
The technology really started to change
everything when everybody got access to
it, and they're doing things that I
couldn't even imagine.
After that,
I think it's definitely gonna be in
the human genetic modification realm.
There's a lot of talk about gene therapy
and using CRISPR in medicine,
but what about outside medicine?
What about for cosmetic reasons, what
about just if you're trying to get high or
something?
- All right, thanks guys, see you later.
- See you later.
- See you.
(Music)
- So I just got back to the office, and
it's so cool that even someone like me
can make yeast glow,
who even knew that yeast can glow?
It's really cool that with CRISPR,
on one hand,
we have the potential to cure cancer,
cure all these diseases.
But on the other hand,
you can just use it to do something
as fun as make glowing beer.
You don't have to be a scientist
to utilize this technique,
and just make cool, fun things at home.
All right guys, I'm out,
I'll see you later.
Hey Chewy, have you heard of CRISPR?
No?
No help.
(Music)