On Wednesday , the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to scientist Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna for their pivotal part in discovering CRISPR / Cas9 , an ancient bacterial defense system that ’s been accommodate into a cheap and revolutionary gene - editing technology . This is the first Nobel in Chemistry to be share alone by two cleaning lady .
CRISPR is shortsighted for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat . It trace a system of genetic sequences rule in bacteria and standardised microorganisms . A CRISPR system is made from bits of repeating desoxyribonucleic acid as well as on a regular basis spaced sections where other DNA sequence are primed into . In bacteria , these open spaces are fill with the inherited material of harmful viruses encountered in the past . This give up the bacteria to recognise the problem computer virus in the future , as well as to target the invader using enzymes ( call Cas ) that slice its genetic body structure to ribbon . In short , CRISPR / Cas pretend as a rudimentary and ancient resistant system for bacteria .
The French - pay Charpentier was n’t the first to discover the existence of CRISPR / Cas . But in 2011 , she and her team published inquiry from their work with strep bacteria that revealed a never - before - seen aspect of CRISPR important to its function , call the tracrRNA molecule . This pave the way to Charpentier ’s work with Doudna , then working at the University of California Berkeley , on one finicky form of CRISPR : the CRISPR / Cas9 system .
Depictions of Emmanuelle Charpentier, left, and Jennifer Doudna, right.Illustration: Niklas Elmehed/Nobel Media
Charpentier , Doudna , and their confrere were the first to recreate CRISPR / Cas9 in the lab , out of doors of find it naturally in bacteria . Even more importantly , they showed that it was potential to reprogram the system to target other pieces of DNA , not just those belonging to virus . This simple finding intend that CRISPR / Cas9 could be turned into a couplet of scissors used by scientist to edit the gene of most any living matter , with fewer resources postulate than other cistron - editing engineering science useable at the clip . It ’s middling to say that this uncovering ushered in a raw geezerhood of genetic applied science , with already palpable results in everything from agriculture tohuman cancer research .
https://gizmodo.com/u-s-trial-finds-crispr-edited-cells-are-safe-in-cancer-1841495203
“ There is enormous top executive in this genetic shaft , which feign us all . It has not only revolutionized basic science , but also resulted in innovative crop and will lead to ground - kick downstairs new medical treatment , ” said Claes Gustafsson , electric chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry , in astatementannouncing the award .
Charpentier and Doudna were two of the scientist most involved in a fierce legal battle over the patent hem in CRISPR / Cas9 , face off primarily against scientist from MIT ’s Broad Institute . To make avery farsighted storyshort , Charpentier and Doudna had file for patent in other 2012 recognizing them as the creators of the technology that allowed it to be adapt into a factor - editing tool ; however , the Broad Institute filed patents six months after that sought credit alternatively , since their work was the first to show CRISPR could be employ to human cells . at long last , the patent officelargely sidedwith the Broad Institute , though some patents werelater givento Charpentier and Doudna ’s team , and there arestill disputesover the intellectual property of the applied science left to be settled .
Many of the scientist involved in other CRISPR research , includingDoudna , have since gone on to found caller invested in using CRISPR to pilot novel treatments and applications . There are on-going clinical trials involving its use as a treatment for Cancer the Crab andsickle cellular phone disease , while it ’s already been used to improve the health and disease resistance of certain crops . Others areworking on waysto refine CRISPR to become even more exact .
https://gizmodo.com/scientists-debut-precise-new-gene-editing-technique-tha-1839226383
But there have also been thorny ethical interrogative sentence about its function , especially when it was discovered in previous 2018 that Chinese scientist He Jiankui had genetically modify at least three sister with CRISPR in an effort to make them resistant to HIV . The Formosan government eventuallysentencedHe Jiankui to three years in prison for his experiments , while it remains unsettled whether the children are truly resistant to the virus or gratuitous of any unexpected aftermath from the transmissible alteration .
This Nobel Prize is likely to shrine Charpentier and Doudna as the foremost pioneers of the CRISPR technology .
ChemistryCRISPRgene editingnobel prizeScience
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