Monthly Meeting of SB Club this October 28, 2024
- Post by: Ahmad Saleh
- October 21, 2024
- No Comment
We would like to inform you that the monthly online meeting of Synthetic Biology Club (SB club) will be held this Monday, October 28, 2024 at 12h00 (EST). Please, Click here to register after which you will receive the meeting link (zoom).
Title: “A frugal CRISPR kit for equitable and accessible education in gene editing and synthetic biology”
Presenter: Teresa García-Ybarra, PhD student at the Abdel-Mawgoud Synthetic Biology Lab at Institute of Integrative and Systems Biology, Laval University, Canada.
Time: Monday, October 28, 2024 at 12h00 (EST).
Place: Online (via Zoom). The zoom link of the meeting is provided by email after your registration. Click here to register.
Abstract: Equitable and accessible education in life sciences, bioengineering, and synthetic biology is crucial for training future scientists and ensuring that biotechnology benefits everyone. As a groundbreaking technology for genome engineering, CRISPR has transformed research and therapeutics. However, hands-on exposure to this technology in educational settings remains scarce due to the high cost and resources required for CRISPR experiments. To address this, CRISPRkit was developed as an affordable, user-friendly gene editing kit specifically tailored for high school students.
CRISPRkit eliminates the need for specialized equipment, prioritizes safety, and uses cost-effective reagents. The kit incorporates CRISPRi gene regulation, chromoproteins, cell-free systems, smartphone-based quantification, and an automated algorithm (CRISPectra) for user-friendly experiments and analysis, all for approximately $2 per experiment. It allows students to perform reliable CRISPR experiments in a classroom without a traditional laboratory setup.
Additionally, CRISPRkit offers a modular and expandable platform for genome engineering, with demonstrated applications in controlling fluorescent proteins and metabolic pathways like melanin production. CRISPRkit aims to make biotechnology education accessible to communities from diverse socioeconomic and geographic backgrounds.