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When you hear “gene editing,” do you think cancer cures? Designer babies? What about new fuel sources or drought-tolerant crops? Gene editing with a technique known as CRISPR/Cas9, hailed as a scientific breakthrough, could mean all those things.

There’s a possibility, of course, that CRISPR/Cas9 may not live up to expectations. That’s happened before. Twenty-five years ago, recombinant DNA was supposed to transform society in a way that, well, didn’t happen. But any past biotech disappointments are not stopping a slew of Bay Area CRISPR startups from taking the leap into the new world of DNA tinkering and synthetic biology. They are, in fact, everywhere, from biotech labs in Emeryville to kitchen counters in Burlingame.

“It’s something that people read about, it’s something people see that’s cutting edge,” says Josiah Zayner, a former synthetic biologist at NASA. “Yet it’s so accessible, it’s something that you can do in your home, on your kitchen table.”

Zayner has considered himself a “biohacker” for a long time. Now it’s his full-time job.

He’s started a company called The Open Discovery Institute, or The...