In fact, eukaryotes—the first sophisticated microbes with a cell nucleus—didn’t even appear until 1.8 billion years ago, according to current thinking.

But the egg will retain a few donor genes, 37 to be precise, in energy-generating compartments outside the cell nucleus, called mitochondria.

They can be configured to ' look' for a particular genetic sequence in the cell nucleus and snip it or switch it off or on.

Microbeam techniques can overcome this limitation by delivering an exact number (one or more) of particles per cell nucleus.

The gametocyte usually lies along the host cell nucleus but young gametoctyes may adhere to the host cell membrane.