A suitable experiment for school “Pauline and the runaways”

Abstract

In a CRISPR experiment, occasionally cells have been found in which genome editing had not taken place as expected. Various hypotheses to explain the observation were put forward and tested experimentally. For the majority of cell clones, a pinpoint deletion of the corresponding spacer repeat unit in the CRISPR array was identified as the cause. Hypotheses, experiments and conclusions were published one after the other as a participatory online project on the website www.crispr-whisper.de. It serves as a stimulus for schools to present research on the basis of open questions and make it understandable.