ROE & CRISPR

"... found it by accident..."

"... discovery by accident..."

"... discovered by accident..."

"... accidental discovery..."

"... a eureka moment..."

These phrases were all either in headlines or in body paragraphs of articles from Business Insider, BiotechIn, The New Yorker, the Genetic Literacy Project, and the New York Times in reference to a new genetic engineering technology called CRISPR. It's a much easier and more precise way to alter genetic sequences in pretty much any organism using specific molecules (termed "clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats") found in commonly occurring microbes.

So how did it get discovered?

Well, it seems that media sources and even Jennifer Doudna, one of the inventors, make it seem as though it just sort of... Happened. Doudna and co-inventor Emmanuelle Charpentier (not that this is relevant right now, but they're both women!) were doing research together on what were essentially the immune systems of microbial DNA. After a while, they serendipitously discovered CRISPR,  lauded as biotech's "most promising breakthrough." Fast forward a few months, and hooray! They've each won a $3 million Breakthrough Prize, and are rumored to win a Nobel prize. There are countless articles about the technology itself--warning of its ethical implications on human genetic alteration (i.e. "designer babies"), celebrating its revolutionary abilities, etc.--but almost every article that mentions its actual discovery refers to it as unintentional in some way.

While on face, this use of the word "accidental" seems like rhetoric of self-effacement (where the scientist's efforts are not acknowledged as important to the discovery), media coverage of CRISPR's discovery both praises the simplicity with which it was discovered as well as the presence and significance of the scientists (especially Doudna). All of the aforementioned articles (except for the one from the NY Times) spend several paragraphs talking about Doudna and Charpentier (or sometimes just Doudna) before even mentioning CRISPR. Doudna was very clearly associated with the invention of CRISPR, and was even asked to give a TED Talk in London. The NY Times compared her discovery of CRISPR as analogous to Watson and Crick's discovery of the double helix structure of DNA (even though it was actually discovered by a woman named Rosalind Franklin, but I won't get into that...).

Two of the three components that make rhetoric of effortlessness effective can be seen here. First, the technology was discovered very naturally, therefore making it seem more credible as a "naturally-occurring truth." Doudna and Charpentier weren't putting building blocks together to make a genetic modifier; they were basically just trying to figure out how bacteria fight the flu. CRISPR is merely an already-occurring biological process applied to non-bacterial organisms. It's less of an invention and more of a nifty application, like aloe vera sap used for sunburns. Like other "natural" truths, it was more "unveiled" than it was "constructed." While machinery exists to actually use CRISPR technology (fingers have been found to be inadequate instruments for splicing RNA), CRISPR itself is a naturally occurring molecule. Second, the discovery of CRISPR seems even more effortless (and credible) because there were no problems when discovering it. How could there be, when it's a completely natural phenomenon that occurs in bacteria, like digestion or replication? Because its discovery and subsequent tests seemingly did not involve any errors or uncertainty, CRISPR was more credible as a new technology.

The reason I'm not really talking about the third reason, where the scientists are seen as more credible for having expended such little effort, is because it's hard to gauge how people view Doudna and Charpentier. I couldn't find any articles that were about their credibility as scientists. Articles that mention them mostly state facts: direct quotes from interviews, educational history, the discovery of CRISPR. However, I'm sure that the impact CRISPR has had/continues to have in the bio-technical sphere (see what I did there) will make both inventors extremely credible names in future research.

The discovery of CRISPR, overall, has been overwhelmingly represented as a coincidental finding by Doudna and Charpentier. It required seemingly very little effort, occurred completely naturally, and apparently had no obstacles keeping Doudna and Charpentier from developing its potential. In the next post, I'm going to talk about how the increased credibility of scientific discoveries/scientists as well as the increased trust in science leads to relatively extreme tech optimism.

References (listed by order of reference; some are referenced more than once)

Loria, Kevin. "The Researchers behind 'the Biggest Biotech Discovery of the Century' Found It by Accident." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 07 July 2015. Web. <http://www.businessinsider.com/the-people-who-discovered-the-most-powerful-genetic-engineering-tool-we-know-found-it-by-accident-2015-6?r=UK&IR=T>.

Sushmitha. "CRISPR-Breakthrough Discovery by Accident." Biotechinasia. Biotech Media Pte. Ltd., 23 July 2015. Web. <https://biotechin.asia/2015/07/23/crispr-breakthrough-discovery-by-accident/>.

Specter, Michael. "The Gene Hackers." The New Yorker. The New Yorker, 08 Nov. 2015. Web. <http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/16/the-gene-hackers>. 

Palca, Joe. "How Accidental Discovery Led to Gene Editing Breakthrough–and Maybe to Nobel Prize." Genetic Literacy Project. Genetic Literacy Project, 14 Oct. 2014. Web. <https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/10/14/how-accidental-discovery-led-to-gene-editing-breakthrough-and-maybe-to-nobel-prize/>.

Pollack, Andrew. "Jennifer Doudna, a Pioneer Who Helped Simplify Genome Editing." The New York Times. The New York Times, 11 May 2015. Web. <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/science/jennifer-doudna-crispr-cas9-genetic-engineering.html>.

Johnson, Carolyn Y. "Control of CRISPR, Biotech’s Most Promising Breakthrough, Is in Dispute." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 13 Jan. 2016. Web. <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/13/control-of-crispr-biotechs-most-promising-breakthrough-is-up-for-grabs/>.

"How CRISPR Lets Us Edit Our DNA." Online video clip. TED. TED, Sep. 2015. Web.