RALEIGH, N.C. — It looked like something a kindergartner might use in an art project. So ordinary looking that, when Jack Wang was presenting it once, someone nearly set a drink down on it by accident. “Almost gave me a heart attack,” recalled Wang, a geneticist here at North Carolina State University. The thin, white, coaster-size circle of paper Wang was holding in his lab was anything but ordinary. He and his colleagues made this piece of paper from genetically edited wood — a material his team hopes will transform the way paper and other wood products are produced. …If there is a molecule that makes wood wood, it’s lignin. …The paper industry uses lots of chemicals and energy to remove lignin from pulp. …So Wang and Barrangou set out to grow trees containing less lignin. …Their goal is to produce low-lignin trees for commercial use by 2040. [Full access to this story requires a Washington Post subscription]