QN: Nobel Prize in Chemistry for CRISPR/Cas9

On Wednesday, the 2020 Nobel Prize for chemistry was awarded to American biochemist Jennifer A. Doudna and French microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier for their discovery of the "gene scissor" CRISPR/Cas9, according to CNN.

Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) is a biotechnology used to cut and sometimes replace DNA segments in specified segments of the genome. CRISPR uses the CRISPR Associated protein 9 (Cas9) to cut and replace segments with copies from pre-selected RNA strands.

CRISPR allows scientists to edit most segments of DNA in living organisms. The only restriction on this technology is human knowledge of genomes, as the technology is relatively precise.

The Nobel was the first in science to be awarded to two women. Charpentier said, “I think it’s very important for women to see a clear path. I think the fact that Jennifer Doudna and I were awarded this prize today can provide a very strong message for young girls”.

The prize was awarded for a joint paper published in 2012 demonstrating RNA-programmed Cas9 could cut bacterial DNA in a test tube.

Security Concerns

While useful, CRISPR has also raised security concerns. Last year, I interviewed Jeffery Kahn, the Robert Henry Levi and Ryda Hecht Levi Professor of Bioethics and Public Policy at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics about CRISPR for The SAIS Observer. He expressed concern about the lack of regulation for CRISPR. He said, “there really isn’t a good framework for governance of this or other similar technologies on an international scale.” 

He added, "many more people are able to use CRISPR, which means we have a governance challenge… How do we control the uses of these new technologies? This is actually, in my opinion, the biggest issue.”

While CRISPR is revolutionary, it is also dangerous and requires national and international regulation and cooperation.