The fight over who owns CRISPR is back, and it’s a rematch
The dispute over valuable patents to the gene-editing tool CRISPR is back on, and the belligerents are once again the Broad Institute of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the University of California, reports STAT News.
The dispute: It’s all about money, power, and scientific credit. In short, it’s about who really invented CRISPR gene editing, a simple way to modify the DNA inside cells that’s swept the world and could be the basis for a new generation of gene-therapy treatments.
The sides: In one corner, UC Berkeley, where biochemist Jennifer Doudna was part of a team that in 2012 described a CRISPR editor able to zap DNA in a test tube. In the other, the Broad Institute of MIT/Harvard, a genomics juggernaut whose star scientist, Feng Zhang, was among the first to use CRISPR to edit human DNA.
The news: This week, the US Patent Office opened an “interference” proceeding. That means it’s going to take a bundle of patents and patent applications it thinks cover the same inventions and, following a court-like legal proceeding, potentially shift rights around among the feuding parties.
