Two Women Win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Crispr/Cas9, a Profound and Profane Discovery

There are three kinds of scientific discoveries; the first kind helps the species survive, those include vaccines, penicillin and realizing the concept of microbes. The second type of discovery could lead to the destruction of the species, the splitting of the atom. Finally, there are scientific discoveries which will alter the species in ways not envisioned in reality but only in sci-fi literature. 

This week, two female scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering a process ripped from the pages of BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley. 

French woman Emmanuelle Charpentier and American  Jennifer A. Doudna were honored for their work in discovering a process to edit genes. Their discovery is profound in its ability to do good, and profane in its ability to do bad. 

“The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was jointly awarded on Wednesday to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna for their 2012 work on Crispr-Cas9, a method to edit DNA. The announcement marks the first time the award has gone to two women. 

“This year’s prize is about rewriting the code of life,” Goran K. Hansson, the secretary-general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said as he announced the names of the laureates. 

Dr. Charpentier and Dr. Doudna, only the sixth and seventh women in history to win a chemistry prize, did much of the pioneering work to turn molecules made by microbes into a tool for customizing genes — whether in microbes, plants, animals or even humans…..It has been only eight years since Dr. Doudna and Dr. Charpentier — now the director of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens in Berlin — co-authored their first paper demonstrating the power of Crispr-Cas9. Since then, the technology has exploded. Doctors are testing it as a cure for genetic disorders such as sickle cell disease and hereditary blindness. Plant scientists are using it to create new crops. Some researchers are even trying to use Crispr to bring species back from extinction……. Crispr “solves problems in every field of biology,” said Angela Zhou, an information scientist at CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society. 

“This technology has utterly transformed the way we do research in basic science,” said Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health. “I am thrilled to see Crispr-Cas getting the recognition we have all been waiting for, and seeing two women being recognized as Nobel Laureates.” 

Crispr has also become one of the most controversial developments in science because of its potential to alter human heredity. In 2018, He Jiankui, a Chinese scientist, announced that he had used the technology to edit the genes of human embryos, which yielded the world’s first genetically modified infants. Dr. He’s experiments were decried by many in the scientific community as irresponsible and dangerous. 

……Dr. Charpentier and Dr. Doudna both stumbled across Crispr by accident. Dr. Charpentier, a microbiologist, spent a number of years studying Streptococcus pyogenes, a species of bacteria that causes scarlet fever and other diseases. Inspecting the microbe’s DNA in 2006, she and her colleagues discovered a puzzling series of repeating segments. 

A few scientists had studied these segments since the 1980s, but no one was sure of their function…. It became clear that between these repeats were bits of genetic material derived from viruses that had tried to infect the bacteria. Somehow, the bacteria were grabbing bits of viral genes and storing them away. It was if they were creating an archive of past infections, which they could later use to defend against future attacks. 

Dr. Charpentier and her colleagues discovered some of the key steps by which the bacteria used this information to attack viruses. The bacteria made molecules of RNA — ribonucleic acid, a cousin of DNA — that recognized the genes of attacking viruses. 

After writing a paper on their discovery in 2011, Dr. Charpentier recognized she needed to collaborate with an expert on RNA molecules to make more progress. That expert was Dr. Doudna. 

……..Dr. Charpentier, 51, and Dr. Doudna, 56, met at a cafe in Puerto Rico in 2011 while attending a scientific conference and immediately started to collaborate on understanding how Crispr worked. Soon, they realized that they might be able to harness the RNA molecules to seek out and alter any piece of DNA. 

Bacteria defend themselves by using these molecules to recognize the genes of an attacking virus. The weaponry includes an enzyme called Cas9 that slices the viral genetic material. 

Dr. Charpentier and Dr. Doudna realized that they could synthesize a piece of RNA that targeted and chopped up not just a spot on a viral gene — but on any gene. In 2012, the scientists proved this concept could work. 

Crispr was not the first tool scientists invented to alter DNA. But previous methods were relatively crude, involving expensive, cumbersome machines and materials. Crispr could become a far more precise genetic surgery. 

If researchers used Crispr molecules to make cuts at two neighboring sites on a piece of DNA, for example, the DNA stretch would heal, sewing itself together without the sliced segment. It became possible to insert a new piece of DNA in the place of the removed one. Subsequent research revealed how to use Crispr to alter single genetic letters. 

What had begun as an ancient system of antiviral defense quickly became one of the most powerful and precise genome-editing tools available to science. In less than a decade, Crispr has become commonplace in laboratories around the world. 

…….Aspiring female scientists, Dr. Wint said, should be empowered to think “that they, too, can be in the next Nobel Prize winners of the future.” 

……..Early on, Dr. Charpentier and Dr. Doudna recognized the potential dangers of the technology that they helped usher into the world. Dr. Doudna left her lab and hit the lecture circuit. In 2017, she co-wrote a book, “A Crack in Creation” to describe both the promise and the peril of Crispr. Nevertheless, she was taken by surprise a year later when Dr. He announced his reckless experiment in China.,,,NEW YORK TIMES.” 

 

In 2015, three years before Dr. He used CRISPR/Cas9  recklessly and wrongly, this Blogger was concerned about the implications of this gene editing process.

In May, 2015,  First Lady Michelle Obama gave a speech at Tuskegee Institute in which she lamented all the slings she had suffered in her life for being a Black woman. 

This Blogger thought it was a trivial speech in the face of what was happening in the world of gene editing, and the potential impact gene editing would have on Blacks. 

On May 14, 2015, this Blogger published:  Michelle Obama at Tuskegee: in the Brave New World of CRISPR/Cas9, 

 

The following is excerpted from that Blog: 

 

“In his(Huxley’s) book, BRAVE NEW WORLD, set in 2540, the offspring of the world are genetically designed.  As Mrs. Obama was looking backward, and kvetching about suspicious clerks, the Chinese were developing a cheap way to alter the DNA of the human race, and design the children of the future. 

“….a Chinese team revealed last month that it had used a new laboratory technique to alter a gene in human embryos….The technology makes genetic manipulations that were theoretical in the past seem easy to achieve — and soon….. 

 

…. the new gene editing tool, known as CRISPR/Cas9, might provide an easy means for molding a person when he or she is just a single-celled embryo. 

CRISPR/Cas9 makes it possible for nearly any scientist to edit DNA in nearly any cell.  

…. alterations in a single-celled embryo would be copied into all the rest of the embryo's cells as it developed — and passed down via sperm or egg to the embryo's children, grandchildren and generations beyond. 

….Scientists have made steady progress in their ability to edit DNA, but the CRISPR/Cas9 system marks a major advance in ease and flexibility of use….. It uses strands of RNA called clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, or CRISPRs, to direct DNA-chopping enzymes from the Cas protein family to sever the viral genome….. 

….The CRISPR/Cas9 method is much simpler — and cheaper — than earlier gene editing technologies in which scientists had to synthesize complex proteins to carry out the same work. …. Uptake in labs has been so enthusiastic that CRISPR has become a verb, a la Google…..People could use gene editing for "non-therapeutic genetic enhancement" — making designer babies with blue eyes and high IQs……LOS ANGELES TIMES” 

The insular Chinese are racists; over 5,000 years, their society has perfected an ethics free zeitgeist. 

The greatest threat to American Blacks in the future are not frightened white ladies, or suspicious clerks, or satirists, or trigger happy cops, or even lynch mobs, but Chinese scientists, without ethics, who can eliminate the black race. 

....Does any reasonable person think that the Chinese, in control of the world’s DNA destiny, will allow a future Kanye West, or Jay Z or Al Sharpton or  Oprah or Michelle Obama to be born? Under the Chinese régime, Tiger Woods’ genes will still produce a great golfer, but rather than look like the homely Tiger Woods, the new version will look like Tiger Woods’ ex wife. Goodbye future Yaphet Kottos…. hello universal CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED progeny. 

 

In the Brave New World of Chinese suzerainty, blonde, blue-eyed blacks will be the norm. 

Mrs. Obama would have better served the Tuskegee Graduates by not rehashing personal slights but by encouraging them to develop a pill which makes DNA resistant to alteration, maintaining black Gene integrity. 

 

In the 21^st Century, the future of black people is in test tubes, not in the street.....….THE MAXEY CHRONICLES.”

 

Science cannot be stopped, unless civilization suffers another Bronze Age Collapse (say around 2050);Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna richly deserve their accolades, recognition and awards. Their discovery will impact masses of humanity by eliminating genetic diseases. It is a profound discovery; alas, mankind is an immature, profane creature, just itching to despoil their discovery. 

All of the human species can only hope their discovery is limited to the good. 

"La française Emmanuelle Charpentier et l'américaine Jennifer A. Doudna, co-prix Nobel de chimie 2020 pour la découverte des « ciseaux » génétiques Crispr/Cas9 qui permettent d'isoler et d'éliminer un gène malade.

Les cocoricos pleuvent depuis l'annonce, mais il faut remarquer qu'Emmanuelle Charpentier travaille en Allemagne et qu'elle reconnaissait, en 2016, qu'il était douteux que la France ait pu accepter de subventionner ses travaux.Frenchmanuelle Carpentier and American Jennifer A. Doudna, 2020 Nobel chemistry co-award for the discovery of Crispr / Cas9 genetic ′′ scissors ′′ that isolate and remove a sick gene.

Cocoricos have been raining since the announcement, but it should be noticed that Emmanuelle Carpentier works in Germany and that in 2016 she acknowledged that it was doubtful whether France would have agreed to subsidize her work.

PS: This is the first female duo to win a Nobel scientist and the third Nobel in chemistry awarded to women, after Marie Curie and her daughter Irene Joliot-Curie....Frédéric Pieretti"