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The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020

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Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020

#81

Post by [deleted] »

adventured wrote: post #64
Fission wrote: post #7

There was a really interesting debate here on who should get credit for the patent (Charpentier & Doudna vs. Feng Zhang and to a lesser extent George Church, i.e. discovery + characterization vs. making things practical). I find it interesting, but not surprising, to see that only the former are getting the Nobel Prize.

It's a reasonably segmented group. Charpentier and Doudna deserve the breakthrough credit they're getting. Individually Feng Zhang did more to push CRISPR forward than anyone else has thus far. And George Church has had his hands all over the space for a very long time, while not fitting into either of the prior two groups. It's so big it more than requires all of them, contributing in the ways they have (along with…

[deleted]

Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020

#82

Post by divbzero »

adventured wrote: post #64
Fission wrote: post #7

There was a really interesting debate here on who should get credit for the patent (Charpentier & Doudna vs. Feng Zhang and to a lesser extent George Church, i.e. discovery + characterization vs. making things practical). I find it interesting, but not surprising, to see that only the former are getting the Nobel Prize.

It's a reasonably segmented group. Charpentier and Doudna deserve the breakthrough credit they're getting. Individually Feng Zhang did more to push CRISPR forward than anyone else has thus far. And George Church has had his hands all over the space for a very long time, while not fitting into either of the prior two groups. It's so big it more than requires all of them, contributing in the ways they have (along with…

George Church praised the Nobel committee’s choice and noted that there are plenty of ideas and companies to go around [1]. I wouldn’t be surprised if CRISPR in medical applications leads to future Nobel prizes, and there will be many winners on the commercial side (e.g. Editas cofounded by Church, Doudna, Zhang and others [2]).

[1]: https://www.statnews.com/2020/10/07/a-terrific-choice-george...

[2]: https://www.genengnews.com/topics/genome-editing/zhang-churc...

Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020

#83

Post by lvs »

natechols wrote: post #77
lvs wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, while those things are factors, the core problem arises from the structure of the funding and career advancement system. These are systems we've constructed, not aspects of human nature. It's sink-or-swim, and even those swimming are only barely doing so.

You are assuming that the construction of the system has nothing to do with human nature in the first place. I think there are a lot of godawful perverse incentives embedded in our current system, and I suspect we could come up with a much better system if we started over from scratch, but I am extremely skeptical that an ideal system would be any less dependent on competition. And in the current context, the burden…

I'm not sure which assumptions I've genuinely revealed, but I certainly would agree that the ideal systems are those that manage the good and the bad in human nature.

It's a straw man to say that a better system must be competition-free. Simply ameliorating the level of intensity and competition would go a long way. We need a more incremental seniority and funding system, where the difference between being able to do academic science and not to do so isn't defined by dramatic forks in the road. We have a vast separation-of-wealth in science funding and institutional power that must be addressed to get back to a healthier place.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020

#84

Post by jackcosgrove »

BurningFrog wrote: post #53
FeistyOtter wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it because right now research is basically a zero sum game? A government sets a budget for research, so the more and the better papers the other lab publishes, the more funding they get and less funding YOUR lab gets.

> Isn't it because right now research is basically a zero sum game? Someone really needs to change the game! A better functioning science would be a huge boost for humanity as a whole. I don't expect government to change how it operates, but maybe some billionaires can build alternative institutions.

You would either need to be able to measure discipline-wide or sub-disclipline-wide performance, or measure unpublished collaborations between researchers.

For the first case, if molecular biologists make a lot of progress, then the molecular biology budget gets increased. Likewise if a discipline stagnates, its budget would be cut. This is probably how it already works to an extent. You still have the problem of a finite budget being shared between disciplines.

I think it's better to measure, and reward, collaboration directly rather than turn the gross knob of aggregate funding. First steps towards this would include publishing negative results, just so there's a data point. Then we reward such results insofar as they contribute to positive results (measured via citations maybe). Obviously positive results would be rewarded much more than negative results, but we shouldn't discount the efforts of the many researchers who diligently find dead ends and tell others to avoid them.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020

#85

Post by Steko »

madars wrote: post #35
est31 wrote: post #20

The 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/2…

Reading "Heroes of CRISPR" [1] it sounds like that, after Cell rejected the paper, they shortened the claim but it was still very much known to them: > Finally, Siksnys showed that the system could also be reconstituted in a second way—by combining purified His-tagged Cas9, in-vitro-transcribed tracrRNA and crRNA, and RNase III—and that both RNAs were essential for Cas9 to cut DNA. (They would ultimately drop the sec…

There is something mesmerizing about an evil genius at the height of their craft, and Eric Lander is an evil genius at the height of his craft.

Lander’s recent essay in Cell entitled “The Heroes of CRISPR” is his masterwork, at once so evil and yet so brilliant that I find it hard not to stand in awe even as I picture him cackling loudly in his Kendall Square lair, giant laser weapon behind him poised to destroy Berkeley if we don’t hand over our patents.

This paper is the latest entry in Lander’s decades long assault on the truth...

http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1825

Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020

#86

Post by teorema »

FeistyOtter wrote: post #31
tuxxy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is academia (at least in the physical sciences) so competitive? My partner is a molecular biologist and she can't collaborate with anyone outside of her lab because of the fear that they collaborators will take their research before they get a chance to publish it. It seems this method of performing groundbreaking research and science is horrifically detrimental to our collective progress. There's no reason for t…

Isn't it because right now research is basically a zero sum game? A government sets a budget for research, so the more and the better papers the other lab publishes, the more funding they get and less funding YOUR lab gets.

It's not just the research though, it's the credit. Here we are discussing a Nobel Prize awarded to what seems to be consensually agreed is a subset of deserving contributors, in part because of flaws in the review process?

Discussion of credit for CRISPR goes back years. The first controversy began with patents. It's been obvious to anyone following this that credit for it is difficult to attribute. Everyone agrees CRISPR is in need of recognition, and yet the major systems for doing so are still based on an erroneous "lone genius" paradigm (with modifications).

Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020

#87

Post by leftyted »

tuxxy wrote: post #27
est31 wrote: post #20

The 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/2…

Why is academia (at least in the physical sciences) so competitive? My partner is a molecular biologist and she can't collaborate with anyone outside of her lab because of the fear that they collaborators will take their research before they get a chance to publish it. It seems this method of performing groundbreaking research and science is horrifically detrimental to our collective progress. There's no reason for t…

> Why is academia (at least in the physical sciences) so competitive?

All human achievement is fundamentally agonistic.

The really bewildering thing is how so many people who clawed their way to the top apparently forgot about the competition it took to get there.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020

#88

Post by rcpt »

tuxxy wrote: post #27
est31 wrote: post #20

The 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/2…

Why is academia (at least in the physical sciences) so competitive? My partner is a molecular biologist and she can't collaborate with anyone outside of her lab because of the fear that they collaborators will take their research before they get a chance to publish it. It seems this method of performing groundbreaking research and science is horrifically detrimental to our collective progress. There's no reason for t…

Not very much money (read: almost 0). If you get scooped you might be out of a job.

"Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre%27s_law

Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020

#89

Post by samatman »

rjtavares wrote: post #17
QuesnayJr wrote: post #5

This 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.

That would be an interesting development! I believe that to date, Madame Curie stands alone in having won Nobel Prizes in more than one field.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020

#90

Post by wombatmobile »

natechols wrote: post #54
tuxxy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is academia (at least in the physical sciences) so competitive? My partner is a molecular biologist and she can't collaborate with anyone outside of her lab because of the fear that they collaborators will take their research before they get a chance to publish it. It seems this method of performing groundbreaking research and science is horrifically detrimental to our collective progress. There's no reason for t…

1) Because human beings aggressively pursue their self-interest, which extends to getting new credit for scientific discoveries. 2) Because scientific discovery often requires multiple competing approaches (because you don't know which one will work in advance), and top-down control tends to discourage that. 3) Because biomedical discovery is not an inherently directed process most of the time, and top-down control w…

> 1) Because human beings aggressively pursue their self-interest

Some human beings work that way.

Others share and cooperate freely with their peers.

“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

― Anaïs Nin

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