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The Villain of CRISPR

michaeleisen.org

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Re: The Villain of CRISPR

#11

Post by protomyth »

astazangasta wrote: post #10

As time goes on, I'm understanding more and more that academic science, which I had naively imagined to be a pure endeavor prosecuted by good-hearted individuals on humanity's behalf, is in fact as dominated by powerful, acquisitive individuals who are more interested in advancing their own power than in human good, knowledge, etc. The pursuit of IP is taking over the university, much to its detriment.

IP is just another form of applause, and with it or without it wouldn't matter or change the behavior. People who want the prestige will rise to the occasion and treat the world as a zero sum game.

Re: The Villain of CRISPR

#12

Post by KasianFranks »

A Nobel Prize is now at stake. Lifespan, disease and the human race is at stake. The internal scientific politicking on both sides is classic. "by going into depth about the contributions of early CRISPR pioneers, Lander is able to almost literally write Doudna and Charpentier (and, for that matter, genome-editing pioneer George Church, whose CRISPR work has also been largely ignored) out of this history. They are mentioned, of course, but everything about the way they are mentioned is designed to minimize their contributions."

However, it's also clear that Doudna's work was central and a hub for overall advancement.

Re: The Villain of CRISPR

#13

Post by seren »

KasianFranks wrote: post #12

A Nobel Prize is now at stake. Lifespan, disease and the human race is at stake. The internal scientific politicking on both sides is classic. "by going into depth about the contributions of early CRISPR pioneers, Lander is able to almost literally write Doudna and Charpentier (and, for that matter, genome-editing pioneer George Church, whose CRISPR work has also been largely ignored) out of this history. They are me…

From what I broadly understand from CRISPR, the Nobel is almost a footnote in history, the real prize seems to be the patent.

Re: The Villain of CRISPR

#14

Post by [deleted] »

Q6T46nT668w6i3m wrote: post #3
texthompson wrote: post #2

Michael Eisen is a professor at Berkeley, founder of the Public Library of Science and pioneered the use of microarrays for studying gene expression. This blog post is in response to the recent controversy about CRISPR, in particular Eric Lander's article called "The Heroes of CRISPR."

> Michael Eisen is a professor at Berkeley and friend and colleague of Jennifer Doudna. What’s the path forward? Is labeling Lander a “villain” useful?

[deleted]

Re: The Villain of CRISPR

#15

Post by nonbel »

I have never seen a paper on CRISPR that can distinguish between selecting pre-existing mutants and actually modifying genes. I have read probably a dozen or so at this point, and it is amazing that they always fail to address this either in citations or actual data.

At first I thought it was an honest mistake, but now it would not surprise me if some of the main players know that their experiments with CRISPR have been misinterpreted. They are then pushing the gene "modification" label anyway because it is sexier.

After all, CRISPR has received an extremely unusual amount of media coverage over the last year or so, which raises red flags. I suspect a marketing effort is being directly funded. That is not a honest use of funds meant for research, especially that which is not meeting minimum scientific standards (ruling out other explanations for the results rather than just a null hypothesis).

Re: The Villain of CRISPR

#16

Post by jimrandomh »

This is part of an ongoing dispute between Jinek et al at Berkeley and Zhang et al at the Broad Institute. Both groups did important work on CRISPR-CAS9, and now they're fighting over credit, a patent, and (probably) a Nobel prize. Eric Lander, head of the Broad Institute, recently published an article "The Heroes of CRISPR" which emphasizes his own institution's role and downplays Berkeley's. Michael Eisen, a professor at Berkeley, wrote this article to emphasize Berkeley's role and downplay Broad's. Lander has, apparently, been in a fight like this before, with Craig Venter's group over credit for being first to sequence the human genome.

My own position is that in a sane world, there would be no patent and the groups would share the Nobel. The patent ownership dispute is the only reason there has to be a fight at all, and while patents on techniques in biology aren't nearly as absurd and destructive over patents on software, I think they're almost certainly net negative overall.

Re: The Villain of CRISPR

#17

Post by daemonk »

nonbel wrote: post #15

I have never seen a paper on CRISPR that can distinguish between selecting pre-existing mutants and actually modifying genes. I have read probably a dozen or so at this point, and it is amazing that they always fail to address this either in citations or actual data. At first I thought it was an honest mistake, but now it would not surprise me if some of the main players know that their experiments with CRISPR have b…

But there are plenty of knock-in experiments where foreign DNA was put into the cut site. Are you saying a pre-existing mutant with the foreign DNA was used in those cases too?

Re: The Villain of CRISPR

#19

Post by Q6T46nT668w6i3m »

geofft wrote: post #9
Q6T46nT668w6i3m wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Michael Eisen is a professor at Berkeley and friend and colleague of Jennifer Doudna. What’s the path forward? Is labeling Lander a “villain” useful?

He mentions that very clearly in the article, and also makes it clear what he stands (and does not stand) to gain financially from Lander's article being discredited. It's a very provocative title, but the policy recommendation in the article—that we stop issuing Nobel prizes and patents to individuals when discoveries happened over a long process—is pretty fair. And he does credit Lander for acknowledging all the sc…

I don’t disagree. But I’m asking, what should happen in the next few months?

Is reconciliation possible? What would it take?

Re: The Villain of CRISPR

#20

Post by junto »

I hate the fact that breakthroughs like this are patentable.

People need to follow Alexander Flemings lead:

  The pharmacist Sir Alexander Fleming is revered not just
  because of his discovery of penicillin – the antibiotic
  that has saved millions of lives – but also due to his 
  efforts to ensure that it was freely available to as much
  of the world’s population as possible. Fleming could have
  become a hugely wealthy man if he had decided to control 
  and license the substance, but he understood that 
  penicillin’s potential to overcome diseases such as 
  syphilis, gangrene and tuberculosis meant it had to be 
  released into the world to serve the greater good. On the
  eve of World War II, he transferred the patents to the US
  and UK governments, which were able to mass-produce 
  penicillin in time to treat many of the wounded in that 
  war. It has saved many millions of lives since.
http://www.mobileworldlive.com/blog/penicillin-the-antidote-...
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