Sarah Wanjiku Macharia is a Ph.D. student and Research Associate at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), hosted by BioSciences for East and Central Africa (BecA) hub, based at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Nairobi, Kenya. She has more than 12 years of experience working in plant tissue culture, genetic engineering, and genome editing of bananas and maize. She has also provided technical support in projects on genetic engineering and genome editing of various crops. These projects have yielded excellent results, and have been published in reputable journals. Her core motivation is the desire to use her professional training, skills, and knowledge in research; to develop technologies aimed at improving agriculture to make communities in developing countries food secure. Currently, she is working on her Ph.D. thesis titled ‘CRISPR activation and Overexpression of MusaVicilin gene for disease resistance in banana’, in addition to assisting in projects related to ‘Control of Banana Xanthomonas wilts” (BXW) disease in bananas’.