Nobel Prize Winners (L-R) Drs. Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna
I read somewhere, probably Twitter, that today is World CRISPR Day. I’m willing to play along since now is an excellent time to think about CRISPR. After all, Drs. Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna received the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry earlier this month for their revolutionary work that has influenced basic, plant and medical science. That brings the number of women who have won a Nobel Prize to 57. Marie Curie has won it twice.
CRISPR-Cas9 is a technology referred to as genetic scissors for its precision and ease-of-use in cutting DNA molecules in specific places. This new technology is fast and efficient, and can rewrite the code of life in a few weeks.
Drs. Charpentier and Doudna were thought to be Nobel Darlings back in 2015, but a patent challenge with Feng Zhang likely scuttled their chances. The battle was still raging on in 2018 and I wrote about it here. Where are we two years later? There is still no clear-cut winner (pun intended).
CRISPR, or Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, was discovered in 2012. Holly Wobma first wrote about CRISPR for Signals in August 2014. Since then, there have been more than 40 blogs that either feature CRISPR or mention it in a meaningful way. Clearly it has had an impact if our bloggers are any indication, and scientists at CCRM are working with CRISPR-Cas9 to help organizations develop the next generation of precision therapies and medicines. (Curious about other gene editing techniques? Read about the Sleeping Beauty transposon.)
When Michael May and I wrote a decade-in-review article for Cell & Gene in February 2020, we said the following about CRISPR: “From a Nobel-winning discovery [referring to induced pluripotent stem cells] to a revolutionary tool that has significant implications for science, CRISPR-Cas9 has the ability to edit genes quickly, inexpensively and effectively. CRISPR allows researchers to delete undesirable genetic traits that cause diseases and disorders. There is also the potential to put desirable traits into the human genome. An exciting recent outcome has been the editing of bone marrow cells to treat sickle-cell anemia.”
But we also remember the CRISPR baby scandal that happened. As Dr. May and I wrote, “Dr. He Jiankui […] implanted gene-edited embryos into two women who gave birth to genetically altered girls. He has just been found guilty of conducting ‘illegal medical practices’ and sentenced to three years in prison for his unethical actions – a reminder that we need to maintain strong legal and ethical oversight of our industry.”
If it’s not too late to register (for free), here is how you can recognize World CRISPR Day (11 a.m. to 6 p.m. EDT), courtesy of SynBio. Dr. Doudna is giving the keynote address. In case you miss it, here is an interview with Dr. Doudna after she learned of her Nobel Prize and one with Dr. Charpentier.
Stacey Johnson
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