The Broad’s rivals in the patent dispute may have different versions of specific chapters, but Lander also draws general lessons from the CRISPR back-story: The most important is that medical breakthroughs often emerge from completely unpredictable origins. The early heroes of CRISPR were not on a quest to edit the human genome — or even to study human disease. Their motivations were a mix of personal curiosity (to understand bizarre repeat sequences in salt-tolerant microbes), military exigency (to defend against biological warfare), and industrial application (to improve yogurt production). The history also illustrates the growing role in biology of “hypothesis- free” discovery based on big data. The discovery of the CRISPR loci, their biological function, and the tracrRNA all emerged not from wet-bench experiments but from open-ended bioinformatic exploration of large-scale, often public, genomic datasets. “Hypothesis-driven” science of course remains essential, but the 21st century will see an increasing partnership between these two approaches. It is instructive that so many of the Heroes of CRISPR did their seminal work near the very start of their scientific careers (including Mojica, Horvath, Marraffini, Charpentier, Vogel, and Zhang)—in several cases, before the age of 30. With youth often comes a willingness to take risks—on uncharted directions and seemingly obscure questions—and a drive to succeed. It’s an important reminder at a time that the median age for first grants from the NIH has crept up to 42. Notably, too, many did their landmark work in places that some might regard as off the beaten path of science (Alicante, Spain; France’s Ministry of Defense; Danisco’s corporate labs; and Vilnius, Lithuania). And, their seminal papers were often rejected by leading journals—appearing only after considerable delay and in less prominent venues. These observations may not be a coincidence: the settings may have afforded greater freedom to pursue less trendy topics but less support about how to overcome skepticism by journals and reviewers. Finally, the narrative underscores that scientific breakthroughs are rarely eureka moments. They are typically ensemble acts, played out over a decade or more, in which the cast becomes part of something greater than what any one of them could do alone. It’s a wonderful lesson for the general public, as well as for a young person contemplating a life in science.
Lander的这篇文章本来本意是好的,试图理清CRISPR领域科研人员的贡献,可是Lander 不是这个领域的人,结果就是这片文章很遗憾的忽略了一个很重要的工作, 在Lander的文章中,figure 2把CRISPR的发展划分成了三部分: 绿色:发现阶段,1993年一篇发现repeat的工作,和2003年的2篇文章 红色:2006年后2012年关于机制的 蓝色:2012年editing part 可见Lander也认为最初发现这个系统的阶段是很重要的;但正是这个阶段Lander忽略了 一个工作:在 2002年已经有一篇重要的计算生物学的文章:A DNA repair system specific for thermophilic Archaea and bacteria predicted by genomic context analysis 发表 在Nucleic Acids Research。 这是一篇与1993年的文章的完全独立的工作,系统的报道了archaea和细菌中的DNA修复 系统,也就是后来的CRISPR系统(换了个名字)!并且这篇文中在CRISPR领域得到了广 泛的引用https://scholar.google.com/scholar?oi=bibs&hl=en&cites= 4824342253951735795&as_sdt=5 实际上1993年的文章仅仅发现了repeat,而这个系统则是第一次在这篇文章中报道的! 正式因为这样,NIH在2014年还发了一个奖给参与NAR2002年的研究人员!Lander这个疏 漏实在是太不应该了! 再补充一下,相同的NCBI研究组在2002年的文章之前已经鉴定这个系统,并且在1998年 发表在Trends in Genetics:Evidence for massive gene exchange between archaeal and bacterial hyperthermophiles;文章中的Figure 1中描述的就是CRISPR 系统,2002年的NAR文章是这个文章的延续罢了。所以说这两个工作是完全独立于其他 工作的,并且第一次鉴定了CRISPR系统,包括componnets,organization,和 enzymatic activity。
【在 R*********e 的大作中提到】 : The Broad’s rivals in the patent dispute may have different versions of : specific chapters, but Lander also draws general lessons from the CRISPR : back-story: : The most important is that medical breakthroughs often emerge from : completely unpredictable origins. The early heroes of CRISPR were not on a : quest to edit the human genome — or even to study human disease. Their : motivations were a mix of personal curiosity (to understand bizarre repeat : sequences in salt-tolerant microbes), military exigency (to defend against : biological warfare), and industrial application (to improve yogurt : production).
快看pubmed commons,真好玩 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=crispr+heroes Emmanuelle Charpentier2016 Jan 19 5:09 p.m. (23 hours ago) 21 of 21 people found this helpful I regret that the description of my and collaborators’ contributions is incomplete and inaccurate. The author did not ask me to check statements regarding me or my lab. I did not see any part of this paper prior to its submission by the author. And the journal did not involve me in the review process. JENNIFER DOUDNA2016 Jan 17 10:31 p.m. (2 days ago) 43 of 43 people found this helpful From Cell editor: “…the author engaged in substantial fact checking directly with the relevant individuals.” However, the description of my lab’s research and our interactions with other investigators is factually incorrect, was not checked by the author and was not agreed to by me prior to publication.