CRISPRkit is a first-of-its-kind educational kit designed for cheap, hands-on experience with CRISPR gene editing/regulation experiments.

CRISPRkit substantially reduces the costs of CRISPR experiments. It offers a straightforward, hands-on approach to deepen your understanding of CRISPR, designed to be so user-friendly that even young teenagers can engage with it.

CRISPRkit is more than the kit itself. We desire to make CRISPR technology accessible to all, fostering a community of enthusiastic young learners passionate about biology and science. Our ultimate goal is to democratize this technology, broadening its reach and inspiring future scientists across the globe.

To learn more about our story and our mission, visit the Who We Are page

While CRISPR technology carries inherent risks, such as potential permanent alterations to target DNA, our kit utilizes dCas9, which merely provides transient regulation of gene expression without making lasting changes. Additionally, the omission of live cell cultures in CRISPRkit enhances its safety.

We are actively scaling up production and establishing a supply chain for CRISPRkit. Currently, we are running a pilot program with 20 schools in the Bay Area, and kits are not officially on sale or for distribution yet. However, we anticipate to start deliveries beginning March/April 2025, first in California and expanding to other states in the next several months. While we are in the process of setting up direct orders through our website, please visit the Get Kits page and complete the google form. We will promptly contact you with details and pricing.

We have developed the single color kit (repress one color), the dual color kit (selective repression of two colors), and the melanin kit (repression of melC to regulate melanin production). We currently plan to distribute the melanin kit as the main offering, but we can provide other kits per request. Stay tuned for more developments! Click here to check out all our kit offerings.

The optimal incubation period ranges from 24-48 hours for the single / dual color kits, and 4-6 hours for the melanin kit. Beyond this window, while the color indicators should remain visible, there might be some evaporation causing the liquid to diminish, potentially reducing color intensity. However, the number of hours varies based on what temperature the tubes are incubated in. We recommend closely monitoring progress for the best results!

If there is a possibility you have reused an inoculation loop, it is best to discard the current one and start afresh with a new loop. We include extra loops in our kit for this very reason. Reusing a loop can introduce discrepancies in your results, given that we are working with minute quantities of reagents (1uL); even a minor deviation can lead to notable differences in outcomes. However, remember: errors are a natural part of the learning process, and you are doing amazing!

We designed our protocol and accompanying demonstration videos to present a straightforward sequence for adding reagents. Modifying this order should not notably influence the experiment’s results.

For optimal results, ensure the tubes are place on a flat surface and on a white piece of paper. Position your phone camera 15-20cm above the tubes and avoid glare or shadows when taking the image.

Occasionally, there might be a discrepancy between what you visually observe and the output expression graphs. This disparity can arise from a variety of factors. One common issue is poor photo quality, which can be influenced by excessive glares and shadows, affecting the accuracy of the image analysis. Additionally, the underlying methodology of our CRISPectra algorithm plays a significant role in these discrepancies. The algorithm functions by extracting RGB pixel values from images and transforming these into singular expression values. While our approach has demonstrated a high correlation with the results obtained from professional lab equipment, such as plate readers, it fundamentally remains an approximation that incorporates environmental factors into its analysis. This means CRISPectra might not always achieve the exact precision and direct measurement capabilities of professional lab equipment or other specialized quantification methods.