Everything you need to know about the Nobel-winning genetic scissors. Out today in Italy.
My CRISPR book, purple edition!
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Category Archives: Crazy4Crispr
Nobel & Nobel – out of the ivory tower
They are two of only seven women who have won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. At the Spark 2021 conference, they chatted about ethics, being women in science, the future of research, and much more. Frances Arnold was the interviewer and Jennifer Doudna the interviewee. The following is an extract of their conversation, dealing with the challenge of starting companies while running a top academic lab.
Continue readingCRISPR digital folklore
If you think science is boring, think again. The American cartoonist Randall Munroe drew a webcomic called Types of scientific paper and several scientists jumped on the bandwagon adapting the idea to their field. Here are “Types of genome editing paper” and “Types of CRISPR paper”. You can find more on Twitter (Types of bioethics/chemical biology/plant science/…).
CRISPR 4 kids
What should I be when I grow up? The DNA-tailor aka gene-editor is among the cool jobs of the future suggested by this book for children published in Italy. Explaining CRISPR to kids is fun. Wired did it in 2007, and the New York Times followed soon (see below).
Continue readingInside the CRISPR saga
What’s unique about this book are the insights into the relationships between the main characters of the CRISPR saga. The loyal friendship linking Jennifer Doudna and George Church. The growing distrust between Doudna and Zhang. Doudna’s sorrow that she and Charpentier have drifted apart, personally as well as scientifically. The last point is indeed a melancholic note in the Nobel-ending tale. Why did their friendship fall apart?
Continue readingCRISPR walk-up music – the compilation
After reading about the 2016 Canada Gairdner Awards in the book by Kevin Davies, I rushed online to listen to the walk-up music chosen by the CRISPR pioneers as they head to the stage to accept their award. Then I cut and pasted their songs and dance moves. So enjoy Jennifer Doudna dancing On the sunny side of the street, Rodolphe Barrangou pirouetting at the rhythm of Happy, Philippe Horvath going wild with Mission Impossible. And guess which is the song selected by Emmanuelle Charpentier? No spoiler, but the lyrics added at the end truly suits the CRISPR technological (r)evolution!
CRISPR Ikea-style
Modular design is the latest trend for developing new CRISPR tools. In The CRISPR Journal, Juan Carlos Collantes et al. present a base-editor system called Pin-point that recruits a DNA base-modifying enzyme through a hook (an RNA aptamer) within the guide-RNA molecule. In Nature Communications the goal of Lacramioara Bintu and colleagues is not base editing but epigenomic editing, the effector is a chromatin regulator and the hook is an antibody. When the CRISPR-effector combo is big, delivery of individual modules is easier. Furthermore, if the effector is already present inside the cell it can be simply recruited by providing the right hook. One more potential advantage is the convenient reconfiguration of the system by the mix and match of individual components and simultaneous recruitment of different effectors to different target sites.
Craig Venter & me
CRISPR meme
CRISPR highlights in 2020
The sickle cell trial in NEJM; Covid19 test using smartphone cameras in Cell; all-male mosquitoes in Nature Biotechnology; CRISPR golden rice in Nature Communications; CRISPR meets cancer therapy in Science; mitochondrial editing in Nature; first in vivo treatment in Nature news; resistant bananas in Nature news; very fast CRISPR in Science; body parts regrowing in Science.
