CRISPR Chaos: The Experiment That Almost Worked!

A little while ago my brother, my dad, and I decided to take on a huge challenge — doing the second CRISPR lab at home. It sounded simple at first… but it quickly turned into one wild science adventure!

Step 1: Making the Plates 

We started by making the agar plates where our E. coli would grow. Everything was going great until we realized something — we didn’t have any ampicillin!

Without ampicillin, the bacteria can grow uncontrollably. And sure enough, when I checked the plates a couple of weeks later, some were totally contaminated. I could tell because there was weird, fuzzy stuff growing on them — random bacteria that crashed our experiment!

It looked kind of gross… but also kind of cool.

Step 2: Hydrating the Bacteria 

Next, we worked on hydrating the bacteria. Everything was going smoothly until it was time for the heat and cold shock — a super important step that helps the bacteria take in new DNA.

You’re supposed to do it for 30 minutes.
But… we left for our grandparents’ house and forgot about it.

By the time we came back — four hours later — the poor bacteria had been chilling (literally) way too long.

Here’s what the tubes looked like during the cold shock phase:
(insert photo)

Step 3: The Calcium Chloride Disaster 

Then came the part where we had to add CaCl₂ (calcium chloride), which helps the DNA move into the cells. But guess what?
We didn’t have any.

So my dad — being the hero of the experiment — went for a run and somehow came back with rock salt that we used instead! It wasn’t perfect, but we were just excited to keep going. Our mission to finish the CRISPR lab was back on track… kind of.

Step 4: The Final Step 

The last step was to add SOC recovery media, which helps the bacteria recover after being shocked. But of course… we didn’t have that either!

We improvised again and hoped for the best.

A week later, I checked the plates — and only two of them had one tiny E. coli colony. Not exactly the result we hoped for, but hey, it was something!

Conclusion

Even though most of our plates didn’t work, I still learned a ton. Science isn’t always about perfect results — it’s about experimenting, problem-solving, and trying again.

We may not have created the perfect CRISPR bacteria this time, but we definitely created some unforgettable CRISPR chaos!