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06/09/2021 | Campus-Meldung

Science Bridge launches school kit on "gene scissors" on the US market

Science Bridge, after a year of intensive collaboration with the company miniPCR (Amplyus, Cambridge, MA), has turned the "gene scissors" experiment developed by Science Bridge into a simple school kit. It has recently become available on the US market.

Several agar plates with bacterial colonies from the CRISPR experiment "from blue to white".

The experiment makes the function of the much-discussed "gene scissors" CRISPR-Cas visible. With the new CRISPR kit "Knockout!", teachers, for example, can carry out the experiment themselves with their students:
A strain of the intestinal bacterium E. coli can be easily stained blue because it contains a specific gene for the enzyme ß-galactosidase. With CRISPR-Cas, this gene can be targeted and destroyed. Consequently, the bacteria can no longer be stained blue. There are several additional experiments that show that the gene has actually been destroyed at the molecular level.
The principle is the same that is already being tested in clinical trials in human medicine for curing severe hereditary diseases and is used in animal and plant breeding.

"Science Bridge will not make a ton of money from this collaboration," says Dr. Heike Ziegler, who oversees Science Bridge's projects as scientific coordinator. "Nor is that our goal. As a nonprofit, we see our mission as science communication, and that includes making science experiments tangible in the truest sense of the word."

When the school and public laboratory Science Bridge e.V. developed the first simple experiment for schools and the general public on the "gene scissors" CRISPR-Cas about two years ago, the American company miniPCR (Amplyus, Cambridge, MA) showed interest in jointly developing an experiment kit. This could make this versatile tool for "genome editing" (Nobel Prize 2020) "comprehensible" to laypersons worldwide. After about a year of intensive collaboration, the CRISPR kit "Knockout!" has been on the market since May 25, 2021.

In Germany, Science Bridge offers experimental insights into CRISPR-Cas technology under professional guidance for schools and the public at the safety labs of the University of Kassel or one of its partner labs. For example, last October, politicians from the German Bundestag conducted the CRISPR-Cas experiment together with Science Bridge staff at the Berlin-Buch Glass Lab (press release, Oct. 27, 2020, https://www.uni-kassel.de/uni/aktuelles/meldung/2020/10/27/politik-an-der-genschere-crispr-cas-workshop-fuer-bundestagsabgeordnete).

More info at:

https://sciencebridge.net/
https://www.minipcr.com/product/knockout/

Contact:

Dr. Heike Ziegler
Email: heike.ziegler@sciencebridge.net