Jennifer Doudna and Jill Banfield at the Innovative Genomics Institute have launched a project called “Engineering the Microbiome with CRISPR to Improve our Climate and Health.” The project aims to use CRISPR genome editing to precisely control microbiomes and address global problems in climate and human health. The initiative has received $70m in funding from donors, making it the largest scientific project funded through The Audacious Project to date.
A new initiative called “Engineering the Microbiome with CRISPR to Improve our Climate and Health” has been launched by Jennifer Doudna and Jill Banfield at the Innovative Genomics Institute. The project has received $70m in funding from donors, making it the largest scientific project funded through The Audacious Project to date. The project will involve a close collaboration across three University of California campuses that capitalizes on the strengths of each institution.
The new initiative aims to create a new toolkit to address global problems in climate and human health by applying CRISPR genome editing to complex microbial communities known as “microbiomes”. Microbes are everywhere, and while they account for the vast majority of life’s diversity, they shape the world in significant but often overlooked ways. Microbiomes are communities of microbes that live in the environment around us, on and even in our bodies. There are more microbial cells in our body than human cells, and we depend on them for a variety of functions. However, when out of balance, microbiomes can also create problems instead.
There is a growing understanding in the medical community that microbiomes in our gut, our airways, and on our skin can significantly impact health issues, including asthma, allergies, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s disease. Microbiomes also represent a significant and largely unaddressed source of global greenhouse gas emissions. Microbes from livestock, agricultural soils, and landfills emit methane and nitrous oxide. Cow burps are commonly pointed to as a major source of methane, but those burps originate from methane-producing microbes in the animals’ guts.
The IGI team is developing a new approach to precisely control microbiomes by building on two state-of-the-art methods pioneered by Doudna and Banfield, having developed significantly over the past decade: CRISPR genome editing and genome-resolved metagenomics. Pairing genome-resolved metagenomics with CRISPR genome editing provides the opportunity and the necessary knowledge to fine-tune microbiomes by making highly targeted changes to specific genes in specific microbes.
The new initiative builds on the 2022 paper published in Nature Microbiology, where Doudna, Banfield, and their teams showed for the first time that they could precisely edit genes directly within complex microbiomes, including model systems replicating natural soil and infant gut microbiomes. The new initiative focuses on refining the toolkit into a precision microbiome editing platform, creating a new class of interventions to treat and prevent human diseases, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions to help reach global climate goals.
The “Engineering the Microbiome with CRISPR to Improve our Climate and Health” initiative is a big dream that uses the smallest tools: microbes. The precision tools being developed will help us understand how microbiomes work at the fundamental level, and we can leverage that knowledge to address problems caused by microbes. The project will significantly impact human health and the environment, with the potential to create new interventions for both human health and combating climate change.
Image provided by MIT News
5 Comments