Researching the genes that affect cell development

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research 1:38 Researching the genes that affect cell development

By:

Clark Dehart

20 Feb 2024 289

Dr. Fernando Biase and his student are conducting CRISPR-cas gene editing research in cattle embryos to better understand factors that affect development. Students in his lab gain hand-on research experience.

Early embryonic loss is a critical reproductive problem that affect many livestock systems. So it's important that we learn and understand how genes function and their importance for those early stages of embryo development. In this phase of the project, we're essentially building know how and developing technology that will allow us and other researchers to alter DNA sequences of cow embryos, simple and efficient manner. This morning we electroporated our embryos. That allows the enzyme to enter the embryo. And it lets us alter the genetic sequence of the embryo. I'm an undergrad in Biase Lab. While the grad students are doing more computational work, I'll be doing a lot of the lab work. It really convinced me that I wanted to go to grad school. Here we are conducting the nanopor sequencing. We extract the genetic material; so DNA and RNA. And that machine will identify the nucleotides of that DNA or RNA sequence. We evaluate the embryo development and other morphological characteristics so that we can learn whether that alteration had an impact on embryo development. With that knowledge, we can hopefully develop approaches that will reduce those losses and have an impact in cattle production.