Gene scissors rewrite the code of life and revolution the life sciences

October 7th, the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded for "developing a gene editing technique" by two inventors of gene editing technology, CRISPR/Cas9: Emmanuele Carpenter and Jennifer Doudna. The two will receive a prize of 10 million Swedish kronor (about 7.6 million yuan).
press release, the organizing committee called CRISPR/Cas9 "one of the sharpest tools in gene technology" that allows researchers to change the DNA of plants, animals and microorganisms with great precision. The technology has revolutionted life sciences, is contributing to new cancer treatments and could make dreams of curing genetic diseases come true.
the first time the Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to two female scientists at the same time.
CRISPR-Cas9 is a gene-editing tool in which Cas9 enzymes act like a pair of molecular scissors capable of cutting DNA strands. Once an enzyme cuts DNA at a specific location, it can be inserted and edited to alter the DNA sequence.
the full name of CRISPR is an abbreviation for "clustered, regularly interspaced, short palindromic repeats" (i.e., clustered, regularly spaced sequences of short replies). Using this sequence, bacteria can "remember" the viruses that have attacked it. Scientists have been studying this strange sequence of genes since they discovered CRISPR in the late 1980s. However, it wasn't until Dudner and Carpentier came across a protein called Cas9 that CRISPR showed great potential as a genome editing tool.
s genetic
powerful and affects us all," said Claes Gustafsson, president of the Nobel Society for Chemistry in the United States. It not only revolutionifies basic science, but also produces new crops and will lead to ground-breaking new therapies. Carpentier
born in France in 1968. She received her Ph.D. from the Pasteur Institute in France in 1995. He is currently director of the Max Planck Institute for Pathogen Science in Germany.
1964, Dudner was born in Washington, D.C.
, Dudner received his Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA. He is currently a professor at the University of California, Berkeley and a fellow at the Howard Hughes Institute of Medicine.1953, J.D. Watson and F.H.C. Crick proposed the molecular structure of DNA. Since then, scientists have been working to develop techniques that manipulate genetic material in cells and organisms. With the development of CRISPR-Cas9, scientists are now able to modify DNA sequences in cells and organisms. This technology has been widely used in basic science, biotechnology and other fields.
the discovery of CRISPR-Cas9 as a gene-editing technique with amazing potential. When Carpenter and Dudner began studying the immune system of Streptococcus, they thought they could develop a new antibiotic, according to the Nobel Organizing Committee. Surprisingly, they found a new molecular tool that could be used to precisely cut genetic material, making it possible to change the code of life.
2011, Dudner began working with Carpentier to develop CRISPR technology. A year later, in a paper published in the journal Science, the two first analyzed the feasibility of crispr gene editing systems to accurately cut DNA in test tubes. They simplified the molecular composition of gene scissors, making the technology easier to use.
, CRISPR technology has been continuously promoted. Plant scientists use it to develop crops that are resistant to mold, pests and drought. In medicine, clinical trials of new cancer therapies are under way. Currently, scientists are conducting clinical trials to see if CRISPR/Cas9 can be used to treat blood diseases such as sickle cell anemia and β thalt thalassemia, as well as hereditary eye disease.
be aware that this powerful gene-editing technique could be misused. For years, multi-national laws have controlled the application of genetic engineering, including a ban on genetic modification of the human genome, and experiments involving humans and animals must be reviewed and approved by the Ethics
Council before they can begin. The World Health Organization recently established a global multidisciplinary expert group focused on reviewing scientific, ethical, social and legal challenges related to human genome editing with the aim of developing a global governance framework for human genome editing.In addition to Carpentier and Dudner, several other scientists are considered important players in the development of CRISPR technology, such as Professor Zhang Feng of mitigator Bode Institute, George Church of Harvard Medical School, biochemist Virginijus Siksnys of the University of Vilnius in Lithuania, and Francis Mosica, a Spanish professor of microbiology and discoverer of CRISPR gene editing techniques.
1993, Mosika accidentally discovered a unique repetitive structure of its DNA, an immune system that resists the invasion of viral DNA, while studying a bacterium that survives in a saline environment. Later, he discovered in the DNA of 20 bacteria that the system allows bacteria to remember an invading virus that recognizes and cuts viral nucleic acids when it invades again. Mosika named it CRISPR, a sequence of short echoes that are clustered and regularly spaced.
2012, Dudner and Carpentier first reported in the journal Science that CRISPR was able to accurately cut DNA in test tubes. Later, in a February 2013 issue of Science, a team led by Zhang Feng of the Broad Institute said they used the method on energies -- including experiments using mouse and human cells.
scientists quickly realized the huge potential of CRISPR, opening the way to commercialization, and the famous academic "gene shear" patent battle ensued.
May 2012, the University of California, Berkeley, where Dudner is based, filed a CRISPR-related patent application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and in December of that year, Zhang Feng's Broad Institute filed a patent application for CRISPR gene editing technology. For the first time in the world, the Dudner team reported that DNA fragments could be cut in-body using the CRISPR-Cas9 system, but this was verified in no detailed cell experiments, while Zhang Feng's team was the first in the world to implement CRISPR gene editing technology in the nucleus.
September 10, 2018, after five years of "patent fighting" settled, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) announced that it had granted the CRISPR gene editing patent to a team of professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
2013, Dudner co-founded the pharmaceutical company Editas Medicine with Zhang Feng, Church and others. The company received a $43 million venture capital investment to develop CRISPR-based drugs with an early focus on the treatment of eye diseases. In 2018, Editas Medicine received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a genetically edited clinical trial. Editas Medicine was listed on NASDAQ in 2016.
, dudner left Editas Medicine after Zhang Feng patented CRISPR-Cas9. Currently, the company's scientific founders are Zhang Feng, George Church, J. Keith Joung and David Liu.
addition to Editas Medicine, two other start-up biotech companies, CRISPR Therapeutics and Intelia Therapeutics, are also bullish on the commercialization of CRISPR technology, focusing on the development of sickle anemia drugs and cancer therapies.