Early in 2020, Dr Andi Wilson and her PhD supervisors published a paper in the journal Fungal Genetics and Biology that detailed the knockout of a novel mating gene in Huntiella omanensis using the CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing system. In response to this, Prof. Brenda Wingfield was contacted by JoVE, the Journal of Visualized Experiments, and was asked to write a methods article detailing the use of CRISPR-Cas9 in non-model fungal species. This article was recently published together with a video  that shows each step of the protocol being acted out by FABIans Dr Andi Wilson, Prof. Brenda Wingfield, Vinolia Danki and Dr Tuan Duong.

The video represents a new way of communicating research - particularly novel techniques and protocols that are not always fully described in research papers. For example, the video can now be used as an educational guide for researchers wanting to establish this genome editing protocol in other non-model species. The video and accompanying article go into more detail regarding protocol development than the original research paper and will hopefully be a great resource for other researchers in the field of fungal biology and genome editing.

Excitingly, the video produced for this project is the first JoVE video to have been shot in Africa. This is yet another example of FABI researchers leading important and exciting new adventures from the African continent!