As an undergrad at Harvard and then a research associate at Columbia University, he was using Crispr, the Nobel Prize–winning gene editing technology, in lab experiments. He wondered, could he use gene editing to make allergy-free dogs—and help his pet ownership dream come true? “This motivated the question of whether we could use gene editing to directly get rid of that allergen at its source,” Walker says. Then, they took samples of the dogs’ saliva and dander to measure levels of the Can f 1 protein. Drops from the edited dog did not elicit a skin response ,while drops from a non-edited dog did.