Scientists saving endangered salmon get help from gene-slicing tool

ANTIOCH, California, June 7 – A gene-editing tool that has led to new cancer therapies and a rapid test for COVID-19 is now helping scientists find endangered species of salmon in the San Francisco Bay.

The CRISPR-based Sherlock tool can identify four types of Chinook salmon, including Sacramento winter-run and Central Valley spring-run, which are both protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. “The Chinook are a great fit actually because all of the runs, more or less, look the same,” said Andrea Schreier, an adjunct associate professor at the University of California Davis and coauthor of a study published last year in Molecular Ecology Resources that examined using this genetic identification on the endangered Delta smelt.