Creating Hypoallergenic Cats Using CRISPR « Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers!

If you’re a cat lover with allergies, this may be your opportunity to put the Benadryl away. Smithsonian shares how researchers are closer to creating hypoallergenic cats using CRISPR technology.

Thanks to CRISPR gene-editing technology, truly hypoallergenic cats could soon steal people’s hearts and safely curl up on their laps without triggering sneezes, itchy eyes or other allergy symptoms.

InBio, a United States biotech company, has found a way to block genes responsible for a major cat allergen using CRISPR, a genetic engineering technique that allows scientists to add or remove bits of DNA at a specific location in an organism’s genome. Gizmodo’s Ed Cara reports the find is the first step toward hypoallergenic cats as healthy as felines with unedited genes. Details on the project called CRISPR Cat were published this month in The CRISPR Journal.

Read more.

Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.

Join 32,000+ makers on Adafruit’s Discord channels and be part of the community! http://adafru.it/discord

Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.

Join us every Wednesday night at 8pm ET for Ask an Engineer!

Follow Adafruit on Instagram for top secret new products, behinds the scenes and more https://www.instagram.com/adafruit/

CircuitPython – The easiest way to program microcontrollers – CircuitPython.org

Get the only spam-free daily newsletter about wearables, running a “maker business”, electronic tips and more! Subscribe at AdafruitDaily.com !