The fourth Darwin Café, an initiative of the biology journal Bionieuws and Resource to celebrate the day on which Darwin was born (12 February), will be all about the revolutionary gene technique CRISPR-Cas.
Microbiologist John van der Oost will mark Darwin’s birthday with a talk entitled ‘The arms race between bacteria and their viruses — from evolution to revolution.’ Van der Oost was a key figure at the start of the CRISPR-Cas revolution with his discovery in 2008 that bacteria store a kind of memory of infections by viruses and then use that information in their immune system. In his talk, he will explain how that works, the unprecedented opportunities offered by this new method for genetic modification but also the issues it raises. The Darwin Café will be held on Wednesday 12 February in Café Rad van Wageningen in the town centre. Admission is free but you have to buy something.