This is a guest post written by Eliza Aguhar.

CRISPR—or clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats—is a natural tool that allows scientists to edit DNA. Though it’s often associated with medical advancements, CRISPR can be used to advance other industries such as agriculture and biofuels.

Genetically Modified Biofuels

Biofuels are combustible fuels (just like gasoline or diesel) that are composed of biomass (any organic matter, such as plants).

Biofuels can be used in regular combustion engines, but the process of growing plants to then burn allow biofuels to be a carbon-neutral process.

However, despite its potential, biofuels haven’t become as widespread because it isn’t economically sustainable yet. In other words, the price that biofuels sell at isn’t enough to make up the cost to produce biofuels.

Enter, CRISPR.

Scientists have used CRISPR to modify algae to produce more efficient biofuels by increasing their lipid output, which is the part of algae used to make biofuels. The most appealing part of using CRISPR to make biofuels more efficient is that once a few algae cells have been edited, the cells will pass down the edit to their offspring so soon, entire farms of gene-edited algae can be grown.

CRISPR: A Solution to Food Security

Whether you know it or not, you probably are eating genetically modified food already. In the US, more than 90% of corn and almost 95% of cotton are genetically modified, and about 75% of supermarket foods have some genetically modified ingredients.

But what if we could kick it up a notch?

Researchers at the University of Maryland are using CRISPR to genetically modify staple foods such as rice and wheat. It doesn’t stop there—scientists globally are editing staple crops to give higher yields and editing crops to become temperature resistance, so that crops can grow in different conditions.

Everyday, we are getting closer and closer to a world where we are using CRISPR to make crops cheaper and more accessible to the masses.

A Set of CRISPR Armour

In June 2017, up to 6000 cattle died of heatstroke in 3 US counties. More than just heat stroke, the increasing temperatures is a catalyst for the spread of disease. The question is, how can we protect our livestock from ever-increasing temperatures and the diseases that come with it?

The answer: CRISPR.

Research is being done by scientists globally to genetically modify livestock to help them become more resistant to heat and the spread of disease. Scientists were already able to do it with cows, pigs, and chickens.

…Though the advancements in medicine that CRISPR has allowed are undoubtedly astounding, DNA doesn’t stop only in humans. Anything with DNA has the potential to be genetically modified, which gives it almost unlimited possible applications.