Patent Office to decide gene-editing dispute between UC Berkeley, MIT scientists

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office agreed Monday to decide whether a UC Berkeley research team will be awarded the rights to the groundbreaking CRISPR-Cas9 technology, which could be worth billions of dollars and serve as the foundation for the burgeoning field of gene editing. The UC Berkeley team, led by campus chemistry professor Jennifer Doudna, claims they invented the CRISPR-Cas9 technique, which uses the Cas9 protein as molecular “scissors” that precisely cut and replace targeted DNA strands. The technology is particularly useful in the context of repairing genetic mutations that cause hereditary diseases, such as sickle cell disease.