查看原文
其他

独家 | 关键人物反驳:“我很震惊……”(基因技术之争2)

2016-08-21 丛乐 知识分子

丛乐


编者按:       

       2016年8月19日,《知识分子》报道“CRISPR是否成为有史以来最大的生物学专利尚无定论,但它成为生物学有史以来最大争议恐怕已经成为事实”。

       加州大学伯克利分校杜德娜一方为专利争议,公布了曾参与博德研究所张锋实验室研究的林帅亮2015年致杜德娜的电子邮件。8月17日《麻省理工科技评论》报道后,引起广泛关注。

       昨晚,《知识分子》收到关键人物之一的反驳。丛乐是张锋当时的研究生、张锋实验室2013年发表CRISPR论文的第一作者(林帅亮是该文第四作者)、与张锋共有CRISPR专利。为了保证准确性,我们全文发表。

       《知识分子》不预设立场,保持公平公正,给不同意见的双方或多方提供理性讨论、争议的平台。

       请有兴趣的读者保持耐心,考虑事情的复杂性,与我们一道跟进,观察事态发展,也许有朝一日能够透过这一世界科学发现的争议了解真相?


撰文 | 丛乐(麻省理工学院-哈佛大学联合博德研究所)


  


这封邮件(编者注:系指美国专利与商标局本周公开的一封张锋实验室的前成员林帅亮发给加州大学伯克利分校的分子生物学家詹妮弗·杜德娜的一封求职信,标题是:“博德研究所的CRISPR专利以及申请贵实验室的职位”。详请参阅《知识分子》此前报道对我博士期间在张锋老师实验室中针对CRISPR基因编辑工作的描述与事实完全不符。我很震惊林帅亮会做出这样的错误描述。我和张锋老师在2011年初开始开发CRISPR在哺乳动物细胞中的应用并获得数据支持这个系统可以用来进行基因编辑。他在2011年10月作为访问学生来实验室进行轮转。他来访期间,我们实验室成员在继续开发CRISPR技术,作为他轮转研究的一部分他也参与了其中部分工作。访问期间我和张锋老师付出时间传授他我们所掌握的实验技术并在科研方面对他进行指导,实验室CRISPR课题组成员一起提供他作为轮转学生被张锋老师安排完成的实验所需要的帮助和实验材料。这段历史和相关记录都很清楚,我希望确保你(编者注:指《知识分子》撰稿人)看到了Broad Institute(博德研究所)对这一情况的回应,其中提供了几项关键证据,链接是:

https://www.broadinstitute.org/what-broad/areas-focus/project-spotlight/journalists-statement-and-background-crispr-patent-interfer

(点击文末“阅读原文”可见)


英文版


Statement


I strongly disagree with the statements in the email as the description of my work in Dr. Feng Zhang's lab is entirely incorrect. I am surprised he would make such misstatements. Dr. Feng Zhang and I started working on CRISPR in mammalian cells back in the beginning of 2011 and obtained positive data to support the system can be harnessed to perform gene editing. He was a visiting rotation student at the Broad from October 2011, and members of the lab continued to work on CRISPR while he was asked to participate as part of his rotation. During his time in the Zhang lab, Feng and I spent time teaching him how to perform experiments, providing guidance to him, and all lab members on the CRISPR team provided materials for him to use in experiments he was asked to run by Feng as a rotation student. The history and related documents are clear, and I wanted to be sure you had a copy of the Broad Institute's response to this issue, which provides several key evidence and is available here: https://www.broadinstitute.org/what-broad/areas-focus/project-spotlight/journalists-statement-and-background-crispr-patent-interfer


同时,回应的英文原文中相关部分节录如下:

Update: August 17, 2016


In its Opposition Document 2, posted August 16, the Regents of the University of California again claim Broad relied on Jinek 2012 to engineer a eukaryotic CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system.


This is false, and has been demonstrated to be false numerous times in the public record.


In an attempt to strengthen its case, in Opposition Document 2 the UC Regents quote an excerpt from an email sent to Jennifer Doudna by a rotation student, who visited the Broad for a brief period from a Peking University/Tsinghua University joint program. This rotation student worked for Feng Zhang at the Broad on CRISPR projects from October 2011 to June 2012.


It is important to understand the context of the visiting student’s email, which the Regents omitted from the Opposition Document:


The student’s visa was scheduled to expire on March 1, 2015.


The student learned in late February that he could not be offered a position to return to the Broad Institute.


The student sent the email to Dr. Doudna on February 28, 2015 requesting a job and offering to share “details and records” about the Broad’s patent claims. The subject line was “The Broad CRISPR patent and Apply for a position in your lab.”


The UC system, at UCSF, offered the student a position on March 2, 2015. He immediately requested a transfer of his visa to UCSF.


The complete email is available on the PTAB website as Exhibit 1475.


Although the rotation student’s email makes several claims, the Opposition Document does not include any evidence to support them.


Abundant evidence already shows that the student’s claims are false. Examples include email exchanges between the student and Zhang:


August 2011: Zhang introduces Cas9 for genome editing to the student.


October 2011: Zhang explains to the student the necessary role of tracrRNA in the duplex with crRNA to load onto the Cas9, writing, “I don’t think transfecting crRNA alone will work. It is loaded onto csn-1 as duplex with the tracrRNA. You should read the tracrRNA Nature paper again…”


November 2011: The student recognizes that some of his experiments were not successful because he did not follow the guidance he had received from Zhang and other lab members. In addition the student indicates Zhang has been overseeing and guiding his work, writing “When Feng wrote on the notebook, I knew what I should do.”.


There are numerous other examples that make clear that beginning in 2011, Zhang and other members of his lab were actively and successfully engineering a unique CRISPR-Cas9 eukaryotic genome editing system prior to and independent of what was later published in Jinek.


Indeed, contrary to the visiting student’s own current claim that there was no invention prior to Jinek 2012, the individual has previously asserted - in legal documents - that he had made contributions to an invention prior to June 2012. This is inconsistent with his current claim.


《知识分子》为本文提供的参考资料:

  1. 丛乐是2013年1月3日上线,2月15日纸质版《科学》论文的第一作者,林帅亮是第四作者,张锋是通讯作者。

    Cong L, Ran FA, Cox D, Lin S, Barretto R, Habib N, Hsu PD, Wu X, Jiang W, Luciano A. LA, Zhang F (2013). 

    Multiplex Genome Engineering Using CRISPR/Cas Systems. Science 339:819-823.

  2. 丛乐和张锋于2014年4月23日申请的CRISPR专利,他们是这一专利的共有者。

    Cong L, Zhang F: CRISPR-Cas component systems, methods and compositions for sequence manipulation, US 8871445 B2 (filing date: April 23, 2014)


欢迎个人转发到朋友圈,

公众号、报刊等转载请联系授权

copyright@zhishifenzi.com


▼点击查看相关文章

机器人医生 | 亚裔成绩好 | 全球首颗量子卫星

屠呦呦 | 张亭栋 | 白岩松 | 何江 | 张锋 | 杨振宁

高考招生 | 冬虫夏草 | 艾滋 | 疫苗 | 转基因笑话

定制食疗饶毅谈读书 | 核心期刊 | LIGO



知识分子为更好的智趣生活ID:The-Intellectual投稿:zizaifenxiang@163.com授权:copyright@zhishifenzi.com长按二维码,关注知识分子


您可能也对以下帖子感兴趣

文章有问题?点此查看未经处理的缓存