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To understand the principles of life, scientists need the ability to modify genes in cells. In the past, this task was very difficult, time-consuming, and sometimes impossible. With the CRISPR / Cas9 scissors method, lifeforms programming code can now be changed in a matter of weeks.
“This genetic tool, which is important to all of us, has incredible power. It has not only sparked a scientific revolution, it has also helped create innovative plants and will also contribute to the development of revolutionary new therapies,” said Claes Gustafsson, President. of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.
As is often the case in science, this discovery of the genetic scissors was quite unexpected. When Emmanuelle Charpentier studied Streptococcus pyogenes, a type of bacteria that is potentially the most harmful to humans, she discovered a hitherto unknown molecule, tracrRNA. In her later work, she showed that the ARNtracr is part of the ancient immune system of this bacterium, CRISPR / Cas, which inactivates viruses by cutting their DNA chains.
E.Charpentier’s research on this discovery was published in 2011. That same year, he began collaborating with experienced biochemist Jennifer Doudna, known for her excellent knowledge of DNA strands. At the same time, they were able to reproduce the genetic scissors of the bacteria already in a test tube and simplify the molecular components of these scissors to make them easier to use.
During the revolutionary experiment in biochemistry, the researchers reprogrammed the genetic scissors. Unmodified natural scissors have been adapted to recognize viral DNA. This year’s Nobel Prize winners have shown that these scissors can be controlled to cut any DNA molecule at a predetermined location. So it is easy to modify the life code at the DNA cleavage site.
Since the development of CRISPR / Cas9 technology in 2012, its use has become very widespread. This rake has contributed to important advances in fundamental research, and plant researchers have been able to create plants resistant to mold, pests, and droughts by applying this tool. Medicine is also going through very important clinical trials of cancer treatments. In the long term, hereditary diseases are expected to be treated in this way as well. Genetic scissors have brought the life sciences into a new era, and in many ways they are incredibly beneficial to all of humanity.
A dramatic career in which the scientist who made Lithuania famous did not succeed
The results of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry have been awaited in Lithuania for several years with great enthusiasm and hope, but in international sources of information prof. V.Šikšnys was hardly mentioned: in almost all cases, Emmanuelle Charpentier from the Helmholtz Infection Research Center (Germany) and Jennifer Doudna, who works at the University of California, Berkeley (USA), are named inventors of the method gene clipping. And Feng Zhang (from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA), in whose name most of the patents related to the cleavage of the CRISPR / Cas9 gene have been registered.
In fact, this situation was very reminiscent of a dramatic career with many intrigues and accidents. Prof. V.Šikšnys was almost certainly the first to separate from the competitors at the starting line. He was the first to publish a scientific paper that describes how CRISPR / Cas9 works. He was the first to file a patent application for this method.
Photo by Vidmantas Balkūnas / 15 min photo / Virginijus Šikšnys
And in both cases, Lithuania suffered a severe failure: the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) evaluated the Lithuanian scientific article with suspicion and began a long process of sending and receiving the text asking for explanations and clarifications. additional. it’s even been four months (and this is a completely surprising period of time before publication).
Meanwhile, the editors of Science magazine, who received a proposal to publish a joint article with very similar content, J.Doudna and E.Charpentier, realized much more quickly what treasure fell into their hands and hastily prepared it for its publication. Thus, V.Šikšnis’s publication was sent to the publication before the American ones, but it was published later.
And while historically an earlier court appearance can be seen as a more important test of primacy, the scientific community, having previously seen an article in Science magazine, reacted stormy and about two months later, in 2012. September 25 V.Šikšnis’s article published in PNAS received a much weaker reaction and fewer citations in the texts of other scholars. All attention was focused on J.Doudna and E.Charpentier.
The history of patent registration ended with similar frustration. It should be mentioned from the outset that Cas9, as a protein, is not patentable, it is a spontaneous biological compound that is itself effective only in bacterial cells and not in mammalian cells. Therefore, it was desired to patent a modified protein and a biochemical kit that provides the function of this protein in mammalian cells.
V.Šikšnys was the first to start the patent career anew: his application was submitted to the US Patent Office in March 2012. But in December of the same year, it was rejected on the grounds that the method described in the patent (the ability of a purified Cas9 protein and a purified RNA fragment to cleave a short DNA fragment in a test solution) did not differ enough from the natural biological system. “.
With Professor V.Šikšnis 15 minutes Gintaras Valinčius, director of the Vilnius University Life Sciences Center (VU GMC), where V.Šikšnys works, briefly commented on the situation of the last Nobel Prize. “I am disappointed in my heart, but I cannot criticize the decision of the scientific committee of another country; this is not the case in the scientific community.” Perhaps they had more information than we have, ”said the GMC director.
In recent years, Vilnius University has repeatedly circulated press releases expressing hope for the first truly Lithuanian Nobel Prize and describing why prof. V.Šikšnys is worthy of this award and how he deals with it. 2016 VU held a public hearing on the Nobel Prize in Chemistry; It is true, then the prize was awarded to Pierre Sauvage and other scientists for the design and synthesis of molecular mechanisms. At the same time, there was a consolation that in the near future the award for the development of CRISPR / CAS technology will definitely be awarded and V.Šikšnys definitely hopes to be included in the list of winners.
The announcement of this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry has dashed those hopes.
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