The launch of a new field: precision microbiome editing

A new $70 million (£56 million) project, co-led by several prominent scientists including University of California, Berkeley biochemist Jennifer Doudna – who shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in chemistry for her work on Crispr gene-editing – will apply precision genome editing to microbiomes to develop a new technique for addressing various key human health and climate problems.

‘We are bringing together these two breakthrough technologies – metagenomics and Crispr – to create a brand new field of science called precision microbiome editing,’ Doudna explained in a talk announcing the project at a TED conference in Vancouver, British Columbia on 17 April. ‘This will allow us to discover links between dysfunctional microbiomes and disease or greenhouse gas emissions.’ Metagenomics is the study of all the genomes found in an environmental sample.