Eric Nguyen

We asked Evo to make its own and generate its own version of CRISPR from scratch, which had never been done before.

It's got proteins and RNA inside.

It's a complex system.

And so our biologists would take that generated DNA and analyze it to see how realistic does it look.

Does it resemble something in nature?

How do its proteins fold?

Which all give us a sense of its function.

But ultimately, we have to test their ability to cut DNA by actually building them in the lab.

And so that's what we did.

Now, waiting for lab results can sometimes be a nerve-wracking experience.

Honestly, it's kind of like waiting for the results of a pregnancy test.

You're excited, anxious and hopeful for a positive outcome.

And then all of a sudden, these two little lines appear.

Just to be crystal, crystal clear, these two lines are a good thing.

That's what we want.

It means that our CRISPRs cut a single strand of DNA into two in the exact right spot, just like natural CRISPRs in the lab.

And so that's when we knew.

It worked.

Evo-generated DNA that not only looked realistic, but that actually functioned.

And so next, we decided to go for that moonshot, to try and generate a whole genome from scratch.