With this startup’s help, gene-editing tech will soon be everywhere
CRISPR is both cheap and could treat major diseases like cancer, but a lot of small labs just don’t have the capacity to edit genes in-house. So this startup is shipping modified cells directly to scientists so they can focus on developing cures.
CRISPR-Cas9–the scissors-like gene-editing technology that could be used to treat cancer, cure genetic diseases like sickle cell anemia, and engineer malaria-resistant mosquitoes or disease-resistant livestock–is cheap and easy enough to use that it has become widespread in labs. But a startup called Synthego, founded by former SpaceX engineers, is trying to make it even more accessible: Click a button on its website, and a cell modified with CRISPR will show up on your doorstep, as long as you’re an academic or working at an institution with credentials.
“You don’t even have to worry about learning CRISPR or anything, it just works,” says Paul Dabrowski, co-founder and CEO of Synthego. “So the idea here is you’re up-leveling the researcher to really be able to focus on the results, and the experiment at hand, rather than the methods or the optimization…
