CRISPR Basics
Lulu & Nana
Gene Editing 101
Important Figures
(full names please)
Designer Babies
100

CRISPR was first discovered in this type of organism as a type of anti-virus immune system.

What is bacteria?

100

The twins were born in this country.

What is China?

100

How sweet! Thanks to advances in gene editing technology in the 1990's, this hormone is no longer harvested from pigs to treat diabetes in humans.

What is "insulin"?

100

Jokes on you! He took credit for being the first scientist to use CRISPR on the world's first genetically modified babies.

Who is Jiankui He?

100

Most countries have this stance on embryonic stem cell gene editing.

What is banned or made illegal?

200

This sequence of nucleic acids is ~20 nucleotides long and complements the target DNA sequence to be cut.

What is "guide RNA"?

200

The name of their gene that was targeted for editing by CRISPR-Cas9.

What is CCR5?

200

The term for a new genetic sequence added into an organism's genome.

What is a "transgene"?

200

He broke the story of the world's first genetically modified babies by publishing it for MIT Technology Review.

Who is Antonio Regalado?

200

Public sentiment toward gene editing is favorable when it is used for these general type of genetic conditions.

What are fatal, deadly, or disabling conditions?

300

Nice good game! CRISPR will bind to these short nucleotide sequences which are found everywhere in the genome. 

What is NGG or "PAM"?

300

The potential off-target effect from their edited gene which raises the specter of "designer babies"

What is increased intelligence or improved cognition?

300

RNA polymerase knows where to start on a transgene because of this region upstream, and, no, it doesn't give out raises.

What is a "promoter"?

300

Hello stranger, what are you buying? This former NASA scientist operates The ODIN which publicly sells DIY CRISPR kits online.

Who is Josiah Zayner?

300

A category of gene therapy that includes modifying gametes, germ cells, or embryonic stem cells.

What is "germline gene therapy"?

400

The term used to describe the process of changing a gene sequence in order to deactivate that gene's expression.

What is "knockout"?

400

It's cyan! This university was formerly associated with the research experiment which genetically modified these twins.

What is Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech)?

400

How's it glowing? This gene is added to provide a visual confirmation that the gene edit worked.

What is "reporter"?

400

The 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to this duo for discovering how to use CRISPR-Cas9 as a pair of genetic scissors.

Who are Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier?

400

This "dividing" social issue is often offered as an ethical concern for the editing genes like height or intelligence

What is "class inequity/inequality"?

500

CRISPR is an acronym for this.

What is "Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats"?

500
Publicly searchable data involving this type of DNA found in an expectant mother's bloodstream revealed their existence.

What is "cell-free DNA"?

500

The gene editing technology involving bacteria was de rigueur before CRISPR made it gauche.

What is "plasmid recombination"?

500
When Jiankui He asked this Nobel Prize winning scientist about human gene editing, they told JK to "make people better."

Who is James Watson?

500

If you got $3 million to spare, this genetic condition can be cured by the most expensive medical treatment in the world.

What is hemophilia?