By Susan Decker and Michelle Cortez
Scientists have used the breakthrough gene-editing technology CRISPR to create advances in medicine and agriculture, from ways to eliminate sickle-cell anemia to growing mushrooms that resist browning.
But the battle over who will make money from it is just beginning.
On Monday, some of the most well-known research institutions in the world — including University of California at Berkeley and the Broad Institute, which is affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University — face off in an appeals court in Washington over the question of who invented and thus can profit from the technology.
CRISPR, or Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, uses a defense mechanism employed by bacteria to target parts of a gene and cut them out like a pair of molecular scissors. It has already triggered a revolution in the world of genetics by making it easier to manipulate the building blocks of living organisms. The CRISPR breakthrough may one day lead to a Nobel Prize.
What’s unclear is who will reap the potential windfall on royalties for commercial applications in medicines, health treatments and improved foods.
