Wow, neither Feng Zhang nor one of the earlier people in the discovery chain.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020
11–20 of 99 posts
Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020
#12[deleted]
Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020
#13There are a more essential researchers than Charpentier and Doudna to understand the evolution of CRISP. The Nobel playing politics instead of science
Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020
#14Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020
#15Thoroughly deserved. 9 years since publishing their paper in Nature. CRISPR/Cas9 is that revolutionary. Is that the fastest Nobel since breakthrough/discovery? Or was it Graphene Nobel (albeit in Physics) in 2010?
EDIT: Looks like fastest Nobel prize since discovery was in 1987 (in Physics) - for high temperature super conductivity. Bednorz and Mueller won their Nobel within 2 years (!!!!!)
Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020
#16There's a documentary on Netflix "Human Nature" that discusses the history of CRISPR and features interviews with both Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna. [0][1][2] [0] https://www.netflix.com/title/81220944 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1UkCfDnn6c [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Nature_(2019_film)
I've heard a number of interviews/podcasts with Jennifer 'The Dude' Doudna about CRISPR/Cas9 over the years. Usually a great listen, she's pretty funny and from all indications has that great combo of taking her work seriously but not herself.
Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020
#17This is one of the most inevitable Nobels in recent memory. The only question was whether they would win it in Chemistry or Medicine.
Makes sense to give it to Chemestry first, but my guess is they'll win both.
Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020
#18Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020
#19Wow, neither Feng Zhang nor one of the earlier people in the discovery chain.
[deleted]
Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020
#20The discovery is beyond doubt deserving of the award. It was also awarded only 8 years after the publication.
It's a bit sad though that Virginijus Šikšnys didn't get any credit for the discovery, because his paper sent over a month earlier was rejected by Cell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginijus_%C5%A0ik%C5%A1nys#P...
Edit: The Nobel award paper writes this on his findings: https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2020/10/advanced-chemistr...
> Similar findings were also published in another report using the related CRISPR-Cas system in Streptococcus. As in Charpentier and Doudna’s work, this report also demonstrated that Cas9 cleaves within the protospacer, that cleavage specificity is directed by the crRNA sequence, and that the two nuclease domains within Cas9, each cleave one strand. However, the researchers did not notice the crucial importance of tracrRNA for sequence-specific cleavage of target DNA [29].
So I guess it's a bit more complicated than just having missed the publication.