Curing GFP-itis in Bacteria with Base Editors: Development of a Genome Editing Science Program Implemented with High School Biology Students

• Published in: bioRxiv
• Main Authors: Vasquez, Carlos A, Evanoff, Mallory, Ranzau, Brodie L, Gu, Sifeng, Deters, Emma, Komor, Alexis C
• Format: Paper Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cold Spring Harbor Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press 07.02.2023
• Subjects: Biology; Colleges & universities; CRISPR; Genome editing; Genomes; Medical research; Medicinal plants; Students
• ISSN: 2692-8205; 2692-8205
• DOI: 10.1101/2023.02.06.527367

The flexibility and precision of CRISPR-Cas9 and related technologies have made these genome editing tools increasingly popular in agriculture, medicine, and basic science research over the past decade. Genome editing will continue to be relevant and utilized across diverse scientific fields in the future. Given this, students should be introduced to genome editing technologies and encouraged to consider their ethical implications early on in pre-college biology curricula. Furthermore, instruction on this topic presents an opportunity to create partnerships between researchers and educators at the K-12 levels that can strengthen student engagement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). To this end, we present a three-day student-centered learning program to introduce high school students to genome editing technologies through a hands-on base editing experiment in E. coli, accompanied by a relevant background lecture and facilitated ethics discussion. This unique partnership aims to educate students and provides a framework for research institutions to implement genome editing outreach programs at local high schools.Competing Interest StatementA.C.K. is a member of the SAB of Pairwise Plants, is an equity holder for Pairwise Plants and Beam Therapeutics, and receives royalties from Pairwise Plants, Beam Therapeutics, and Editas Medicine via patents licensed from Harvard University. A.C.K.s interests have been reviewed and approved by the University of California, San Diego in accordance with its conflict of interest policies. All other authors declare no competing financial interests.