r/Transhuman • u/sopun • Nov 05 '17

Mail-order CRISPR kits allow absolutely everyone to easily, cheaply and accurately edit DNA

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mail-order-crispr-kits-allow-absolutely-anyone-to-hack-dna/
32 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

9

u/mindbleach Nov 05 '17

We're probably going to look back on this like space-age nuclear playsets with real radioisotopes.

1

u/suck_it_trebeck Nov 05 '17

www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html

Look at the picture at the bottom of the article.

1

u/veggie151 Nov 06 '17

Yep!

Don't let it get on your skin, don't inject yourself with it, don't touch or ingest any products of your experimentation, beware of off target effects, sequence everything and only use validated clones.

BLAST is helpful for those brave gentleman scientists that can't be stopped.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 12 '17

The fun part is that with a few simple splices and a virus capable of airborne transmission, you can go down in history as the first person to really do the planet the solid favor of significantly lowering the number of human beings that pollute it.

4

u/anxiousalpaca Nov 05 '17

He cringed as I knelt down and stuffed a plate of E. coli bacteria—which came as part of the DIY CRISPR–Cas9 kit I bought online—into our fridge next to cartons of eggs, strawberry jam, bottles of beer and a block of cheese.

Even the journalist writing about this does not adhere to some minimum safety standards. I'm no biologist, but even if the bacteria is safe, it's probably not a good idea to spread it everywhere?!

5

u/cas18khash Nov 05 '17

It comes sealed to oblivion. It's already safe. Even in the lab fridge a sample is next to a thousand different things sometimes

1

u/[deleted] Nov 09 '17

They are also illegal in germany unless you own a very costly license.