The Villain of CRISPR • Hacker News Board

Re: The Villain of CRISPR

#31

Post by nonbel » Mon, Jan 25, 2016, 5:15 PM UTC

daemonk wrote: post #17

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?

Please link to one/some of the papers you are referring to. From what I have seen, they always detect edits in the controls or fail to report enough information to say either way, eg:

"Although rare (∼1–2%), edits were detected with Cas9-only control treatment, including at the predicted CXCR4 cut site, potentially indicating trace amounts of experimental contamination of the Cas9 RNPs." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10437.full

Note the curiously missing rows in dataset S1.

Re: The Villain of CRISPR

#32

Post by daughart » Mon, Jan 25, 2016, 5:18 PM UTC

junto wrote: post #20

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…

It will take millions of dollars of research to turn this basic bioengineering technique into an approved (safe and effective) human therapy. How do you motivate investors to fund this research without the safety net of a patent to protect that investment from free-loaders?

Re: The Villain of CRISPR

#33

Post by philsnow » Mon, Jan 25, 2016, 5:20 PM UTC

junto wrote: post #20

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 CRISPR gets/stays patented, the part of the world that respects patent law is going to get left out of whatever innovations it yields. Or maybe not completely left behind, but the groups that will be able to license it will number few.

I generally agree that discoveries like this should go in the public domain as quickly as possible.

The pissing contest about "who invented what, when" is fine and good, to a point; nobody cares if "Cancer Immunity 1.0" drug has a tagline "brought to you by Lander's Finest". To the extent that success and notoriety determine careers, and so we should "get it right" so that the "right" people get credit... I think most researchers will persevere and continue to do science (for the benefit of humanity or for personal glory, or whatever) even if they get shafted for credit.

But the technology itself.. get it into everybody's hands and let the thousand flowers bloom already.

Re: The Villain of CRISPR

#34

Post by jedberg » Mon, Jan 25, 2016, 5:20 PM UTC

daughart wrote: post #32

junto wrote: post #20

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…

It will take millions of dollars of research to turn this basic bioengineering technique into an approved (safe and effective) human therapy. How do you motivate investors to fund this research without the safety net of a patent to protect that investment from free-loaders?

The way it was done before patents -- government funded research institutions whose only motivation was to provide scientific breakthroughs so they could continue to receive government funding.

Re: The Villain of CRISPR

#35

Post by speeder » Mon, Jan 25, 2016, 5:20 PM UTC

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…

My sister was sent by Brazil's government to MIT so she can bring back CRISPR technology to Brazil public universities to speed a research here about using gene editing to control stem cell expression.

I've seen plenty of people and papers where dna was edited in across entirely different organism realms, bacteria dna in animals, animal dna in plants, and so on...

I honestly don't understand how the technique ins't about editing, the only use I saw for it is editing.

EDIT: I asked my sister to give me links to some papers, I will post them after she replies.

Re: The Villain of CRISPR

#36

Post by daughart » Mon, Jan 25, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

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…

It's not clear to me what you are saying. Cas9/CRISPR unambiguously cuts the genome at a target site determined by the guide RNA sequence. In the presence of a DNA oligo with partial complementarity to the cut site, the DNA repair mechanism will sometimes incorporate the "payload" oligo, causing the genetic locus to be engineered from one sequence to another, predetermined sequence.

Re: The Villain of CRISPR

#37

Post by daughart » Mon, Jan 25, 2016, 5:25 PM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #11

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.

This particular piece of IP is probably worth billions of dollars. I think that's a little better than applause.

Re: The Villain of CRISPR

#38

Post by nonbel » Mon, Jan 25, 2016, 5:25 PM UTC

speeder wrote: post #35

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…

My sister was sent by Brazil's government to MIT so she can bring back CRISPR technology to Brazil public universities to speed a research here about using gene editing to control stem cell expression. I've seen plenty of people and papers where dna was edited in across entirely different organism realms, bacteria dna in animals, animal dna in plants, and so on... I honestly don't understand how the technique ins't a…

You'll have to link to the exact evidence and methods you are referring to.

Re: The Villain of CRISPR

#39

Post by benrapscallion » Mon, Jan 25, 2016, 5:26 PM UTC

jimrandomh wrote: post #16

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 profes…

This article has a little more background: http://www.statnews.com/2016/01/25/why-eric-lander-morphed/

Re: The Villain of CRISPR

#40

Post by jimrandomh » Mon, Jan 25, 2016, 5:27 PM UTC

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…

The papers I've looked at sequence and measure the on-target mutation rate, and don't have any steps in them that would select for mutants (because that would ruin the measurement). Where do you propose the selection for mutants would be happening?

Unless I'm misunderstanding something about how the experiments are done, your theory would require many groups to be independently committing scientific fraud, which is very implausible.