Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna win the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

The discoverers of the applications in gene editing of the CRISPR molecular complex receive the award for their “genome editing method”
The award-winning method is based on the archaebacterial discoveries of the Spanish researcher Francis Mojica, from the University of Alicante.
This method of genetic editing greatly enhances the development of new products and processes in plant production

BIOVEGEN-Plant Biotechnology Technology Platform is pleased to have awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna “for the development of a method for genome editing.” The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences recognizes a discovery made in basic research on bacteria, which has led to numerous high-impact applications in plant and medical sciences.

At BIOVEGEN we are happy with the award for CRISPR gene editing tools given the enormous potential and advantages that this technique offers over traditional methods, but we also regret the decision to have left Francisco Juan Martínez Mojica, Francis Mojica, microbiologist at the University from Alicante, out of the winners. The research of Francis Mojica and his discovery of an immune system specific to certain bacteria in Santa Pola (Alicante) were fundamental for the development of this innovative tool, because he was the first researcher to discover DNA repetitions, interspersed by different sequences. , in an archaea proposing a possible function for this grouping of sequences. Additionally, he proposed the acronym CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) making a compilation of CRISPR systems in bacteria and archaea, being the first to propose that CRISPR systems in prokaryotes constituted the elements of a complex immune defense system.

In agrobiotechnology, genome editing allows scientists and breeders to improve plant varieties, from fruit and vegetable crops to legumes and cereals, on which people depend for food and health. The award-winning method allows precise and specific improvements to be made in the plant genome to achieve greater nutritional quality, resistance to abiotic/biotic stress and environmental sustainability, among many other characteristics of interest. Furthermore, it allows non-leading crops where improvement efforts were not very high due to their low market share compared to the time and effort required to improve them with classical methods, to benefit from new genomic techniques. In all cases, the resulting crops will contribute to environmental sustainability, very important in light of climate change, as well as nutritional and human health improvements.

At BIOVEGEN-Plant Biotechnology Technology Platform, aware of all this, we underline the need to improve European legislation in this matter, so that the potential of genome editing to improve crops is not limited and European innovation agents (companies , research centers...) and European society as a whole can benefit from the enormous impact that these tools will bring to the plant production sector.

About BIOVEGEN

BIOVEGEN-Plant Biotechnology Technology Platformis a public-private entity whose objective is to improve the competitiveness of the sector through the development of technologies from Plant Biology. To do this, it brings together entities from the Spanish agri-food sector, connecting the supply and demand of technology, and generating business opportunities through Science-Business collaboration. BIOVEGEN develops collaborations and R&D projects, and identifies the technological challenges of the sector to develop technologies. It acts as an interface between the scientific, business and Administration communities. To this end, it offers a series of tools to facilitate its partners' R&D&I activities. Currently it has 113 partner entities: 95 companies, 18 research organizations and the Ministry of Science and Innovation, which supports and co-finances the initiative. In addition, BIOVEGEN is open to collaborations with other entities in the sector.