Not so long ago I posted some comments on very recent developments in the game-changing field of CRISPR technology, coming out of the lab of Feng Zhang et al. at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Mass; if anyone needs reminding, Zhang is a pioneer in the field and currently holds the bulk of the patents originating from the discovery of CRISPR.
Well, last week, CRISPR, Zhang and the Broad all made the headlines again, not because of the upcoming (and longtime-simmering) patent interference case over the technology, but rather due to a published attempt by the high profile head of the Broad Institute, Eric Lander no less, to write (and lay down in stone, perhaps?) the history of the discovery of CRISPR.
However, far from being seen as the modern day and scientific equivalent of the decalogue and its two stone tablets, Lander has caused a firestorm of controversy over what many similarly prominent figures claim is a self-serving and inaccuracy-laced attempt to actually rewrite the history of CRISPR! Apart from the fact that the very facts themselves are in question, Lander's case is not helped by having a clear axe to grind in the current controversy over who-discovered-what; he is after all, Zhang's de facto boss at the Broad.
The timing really couldn't be worse in my opinion. If this had been written even six months ago, or had issued during/after the patent interference hearings at the USPTO, it may have appeared less loaded or strategic. But it being cranked out a month or so before the landmark hearings are set to begin, and it coming from a figure who is sufficiently prominent as to be an advisor to President Obama on science and technology, well, it certainly appears to be an attempt to put the argument to bed before the legal shenanigans fully commence - from an individual with skin in the game and definitively something huge to lose - even if not personally, but certainly professionally and institutionally.
A major issue science has faced in recent years is that of reproducibility of results and research findings, or the lack thereof. It seems to have become almost normal, if not quite acceptable, that a team in one institution or location has trouble reproducing the work of another, following prominent publication. Although there have been controversial accusations, and some cases of apparent fraud, it seems that a large part of the problem resides in the various cell lines teams use for their experiments, and how truly similar a given cell line may be in two different corners of the scientific world at any given time.
As reported on this blog last year, the heretofore anonymous outfit known as PubPeer is front and centre in the war on irreproducible results, and ostensibly allows researchers a safe place to call out questionable publications by competitors. However, while scientists are loathe to accuse one another of outright fraud and prefer to believe more generous conclusions, when it comes to not giving credit where it's due and even seemingly eliminating or downplaying the role of certain key players in a major discovery while elevating others, inappropriately, the claws do come out and the responses are a lot less guarded or gracious.
Such as it is with this Lander "Perspective" in Cell, emotively entitled "The Heroes of CRISPR" and published on January 14, this year. Normally such retrospective pieces may raise a few eyebrows at the coffee machine or in a lab's journal club, and then disappear under the weight of more important everyday matters and endless newer publications. But this Lander piece lit up even the Twitterverse; not exactly a place that your typical scientist spends much or any of their precious time!
When you start seeing heated Twitterrage over an esoteric subject such as #CRISPR, then you know it must be 2016, and not 1984, right?! In some ways I found the social media outburst most entertaining because it sure beat the usual nonsense surrounding the Biebs or the Kardashians or the Real Housewives of Thetford Mines (insert your fave frnachise of that TV show/excuse for grown women behaving like vicious, spoilt teenage brats). For once we had something of real substance and import to fight over, and the financial stakes are higher in all likelihood as they probably run into the billions, ultimately.
There was more than one problem with Lander's use of Cell as a personal platform for his take on the story, not the least (and probably the most glaring) of which was the omission of any disclosure of potential conflict(s) of interest that he may have had. It's not just that he has a clear professional interest in seeing Zhang and the Broad retain ownership of a dozen or more patents at the expense of UC Berkeley, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier. Additionally, there are huge amounts of money involved in the success of Broad-associated Editas Medicine (estimated to likely raise as much as $100M in an IPO), and Lander also has close ties to a major VC company (Third Rock) that funded that biotech.
To say he is conflicted is an understatement, and the omission of some/any kind of disclosure statement simply pushed coarse-ground sea salt deeper into already painful wounds, and the response was to be expected. "Scientific propaganda at its most repellent" is how one prominent scientist at UC Berkeley put it, while another star researcher located at the Mount Sinai Hospital (Toronto) referred to the perspective as "Orwellian doublespeak at its very best". The mercury has been rising ever since.
It probably irks Lander and the Broad that Doudna and Charpentier already shared a multimillion prize for their discoveries on CRISPR, as recipients of the Breakthrough Prize in San Francisco last year. The subtext of that award being that these two are the true discoverers of CRISPR, which was compounded by Doudna herself giving a TED talk wherein she described herself (and her colleague) as having discovered the phenomenon. Ouch! So, both sides have been edgy and self-promotional over who-discovered-what, and it's not all just bad boy Lander and the big old, bad old Broad. And who wouldn't expect a(n) (un)healthy amount of podium hugging, Gallo vs Montagnier-style, over a monster genome editing breakthrough such as CRISPR - it's only human nature - even if the human ego can edit us into monsters, sometimes!
This will all play out at the hands of the USPTO soon enough, and there will be chilled champagne flowing in the winning institution's halls and laboratories, while the losing side will belch bituminous bile down the corridors of theirs - but it's all in the game. The world will keep on turning. All the players will survive. Some will get a lot richer. Some will simply get richer. And the people with the least to lose - the lawyers - will all come away with another extremely healthy tab of extravagantly billed hours and expenses. Win-win. Except for the credit.
The thing that intrigues me having watched this story is how the Internet and social media have now changed the scientific process irreversibly; from a situation where publication in journals was the only real way to raise issues or contest results or statements made (and even that had to be peer reviewed, so was protective for the accused and risky for the accuser), to one where players at any and all levels (lab technician all the way up to lauded professor) can use social media to ignite a conversation about publication, data, prominent personalities, or even the very scientific process itself.
The good old days of keeping everything quiet, and brushing science's dark matter under the rug, with the big names ultra-protected and closeted, well, they no longer exist. The darker underbelly of fiercely contested science, and its equally fierce contest for recognition and funding, is being exposed and pushed out onto the Internet for all to see - Joe Public included. The stars of this ecosystem are beginning to find themselves forced out onto the very same social media public stage previously reserved for the "real" stars of the world of entertainment, and that is another game-changer. It's only going to get more interesting in this amazing world of science, folks!
A major issue science has faced in recent years is that of reproducibility of results and research findings, or the lack thereof. It seems to have become almost normal, if not quite acceptable, that a team in one institution or location has trouble reproducing the work of another, following prominent publication. Although there have been controversial accusations, and some cases of apparent fraud, it seems that a large part of the problem resides in the various cell lines teams use for their experiments, and how truly similar a given cell line may be in two different corners of the scientific world at any given time.
As reported on this blog last year, the heretofore anonymous outfit known as PubPeer is front and centre in the war on irreproducible results, and ostensibly allows researchers a safe place to call out questionable publications by competitors. However, while scientists are loathe to accuse one another of outright fraud and prefer to believe more generous conclusions, when it comes to not giving credit where it's due and even seemingly eliminating or downplaying the role of certain key players in a major discovery while elevating others, inappropriately, the claws do come out and the responses are a lot less guarded or gracious.
Such as it is with this Lander "Perspective" in Cell, emotively entitled "The Heroes of CRISPR" and published on January 14, this year. Normally such retrospective pieces may raise a few eyebrows at the coffee machine or in a lab's journal club, and then disappear under the weight of more important everyday matters and endless newer publications. But this Lander piece lit up even the Twitterverse; not exactly a place that your typical scientist spends much or any of their precious time!
When you start seeing heated Twitterrage over an esoteric subject such as #CRISPR, then you know it must be 2016, and not 1984, right?! In some ways I found the social media outburst most entertaining because it sure beat the usual nonsense surrounding the Biebs or the Kardashians or the Real Housewives of Thetford Mines (insert your fave frnachise of that TV show/excuse for grown women behaving like vicious, spoilt teenage brats). For once we had something of real substance and import to fight over, and the financial stakes are higher in all likelihood as they probably run into the billions, ultimately.
There was more than one problem with Lander's use of Cell as a personal platform for his take on the story, not the least (and probably the most glaring) of which was the omission of any disclosure of potential conflict(s) of interest that he may have had. It's not just that he has a clear professional interest in seeing Zhang and the Broad retain ownership of a dozen or more patents at the expense of UC Berkeley, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier. Additionally, there are huge amounts of money involved in the success of Broad-associated Editas Medicine (estimated to likely raise as much as $100M in an IPO), and Lander also has close ties to a major VC company (Third Rock) that funded that biotech.
To say he is conflicted is an understatement, and the omission of some/any kind of disclosure statement simply pushed coarse-ground sea salt deeper into already painful wounds, and the response was to be expected. "Scientific propaganda at its most repellent" is how one prominent scientist at UC Berkeley put it, while another star researcher located at the Mount Sinai Hospital (Toronto) referred to the perspective as "Orwellian doublespeak at its very best". The mercury has been rising ever since.
It probably irks Lander and the Broad that Doudna and Charpentier already shared a multimillion prize for their discoveries on CRISPR, as recipients of the Breakthrough Prize in San Francisco last year. The subtext of that award being that these two are the true discoverers of CRISPR, which was compounded by Doudna herself giving a TED talk wherein she described herself (and her colleague) as having discovered the phenomenon. Ouch! So, both sides have been edgy and self-promotional over who-discovered-what, and it's not all just bad boy Lander and the big old, bad old Broad. And who wouldn't expect a(n) (un)healthy amount of podium hugging, Gallo vs Montagnier-style, over a monster genome editing breakthrough such as CRISPR - it's only human nature - even if the human ego can edit us into monsters, sometimes!
This will all play out at the hands of the USPTO soon enough, and there will be chilled champagne flowing in the winning institution's halls and laboratories, while the losing side will belch bituminous bile down the corridors of theirs - but it's all in the game. The world will keep on turning. All the players will survive. Some will get a lot richer. Some will simply get richer. And the people with the least to lose - the lawyers - will all come away with another extremely healthy tab of extravagantly billed hours and expenses. Win-win. Except for the credit.
The thing that intrigues me having watched this story is how the Internet and social media have now changed the scientific process irreversibly; from a situation where publication in journals was the only real way to raise issues or contest results or statements made (and even that had to be peer reviewed, so was protective for the accused and risky for the accuser), to one where players at any and all levels (lab technician all the way up to lauded professor) can use social media to ignite a conversation about publication, data, prominent personalities, or even the very scientific process itself.
The good old days of keeping everything quiet, and brushing science's dark matter under the rug, with the big names ultra-protected and closeted, well, they no longer exist. The darker underbelly of fiercely contested science, and its equally fierce contest for recognition and funding, is being exposed and pushed out onto the Internet for all to see - Joe Public included. The stars of this ecosystem are beginning to find themselves forced out onto the very same social media public stage previously reserved for the "real" stars of the world of entertainment, and that is another game-changer. It's only going to get more interesting in this amazing world of science, folks!
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