ABOVE: WYSS INSTITUTE AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Using CRISPR, researchers have crafted a technique to study mammalian development in exceptional detail, according to a report published in Science yesterday (August 9).
“This method allows us to take the final developmental stage of a model organism and from there reconstruct a full lineage tree all the way back to its single-cell stage,” coauthor George Church, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, tells The Harvard Gazette. “It’s an ambitious goal that will certainly take many labs several years to realize, but this paper represents an important step in getting there.”
To tag cells in developing mice, Church’s group used CRISPR’s habit of leaving behind a sign when editing DNA to create a barcode of 60 such marks across their genomes. Every time a cell divided, a new edit mark integrated into its DNA creating a unique combination over many rounds of ...
