Finding biological barcodes
Understanding how various cell types differentiate themselves during development is one of the fundamental questions in developmental biology. Using genome-editing tools, Harvard scientists are getting closer to finding answers. A recent study authored by Alexander Schier, chair of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and the Leo Erikson Life Sciences Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, James Gagnon, a postdoctoral fellow in Schier’s lab, and Aaron McKenna and Greg Findlay, Ph.D. students in the lab of Jay Shendure at the University of Washington, developed a system that uses the CRISPR genome-editing tool to mark zebrafish cells with a genetic barcode that can later be used to reconstruct their lineage. The study was published earlier this year in Science. “We would like to understand how cells go down different avenues during development and end up as specific cell types,” Schier said. “With this new tool, we can take adult brain cells and...