Can genetic engineering stop Minnesota’s lake invaders?

Leland Feist and Colby Johnson carefully squeezed eggs from a female fish and sperm from a male fish, then fertilized the eggs in a Petri dish inside their St. Paul lab. Within minutes, the eggs began to divide and grow.

“We just made baby carp right there,” Johnson declared.

Not just any carp, though. These could be the newest recruits in Minnesota’s long and largely losing battle against invasive species.

Using a machine with a tiny glass needle, the researchers inject the common carp embryos with engineered DNA to introduce traits the fish could pass onto their offspring. One approach they’re testing would make female carp infertile. Another is designed to prevent female embryos from developing.