CRISPR patent battle heats up as new email disputes Zhang’s claims
The ongoing patent battle over who owns the rights to the CRISPR-Cas9 technology has heated up with a new email. Biochemist Dr. Jennifer Doudna, from the University of California, Berkeley, and biologist Feng Zhang, from the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, both claim to have invented the tech. This led to a legal “interference” claim in January to settle who is right.
This battle recently boiled over when an email from Shuailiang Lin, a junior scientist formerly at the Broad Institute, to Doudna came to light. This email disputed the Broad Institute’s claims to CRISPR and accused the organization of misleading the patent office. The email was originally sent in February of 2015, but has just been made public by the U.S. Patent Office.
Hundreds of millions of dollars have already been invested into CRISPR, and whoever owns the rights owns much of the money that will come from meds using it.
