Nobel Prize predictions see honors for gene editing technology

By Julie Steenhuysen
Sept 24 (Reuters) - Scientists behind the discovery of a
technology called CRISPR-Cas9 that allows researchers to edit
virtually any gene they target are among the top contenders for
Nobel prizes next month, according to an annual analysis by
Thomson Reuters.
The predictions announced on Thursday come from the
Intellectual Property & Science unit of Thomson Reuters TRI.N
(which also owns the Reuters news service). Since 2002, it has
accurately identified 37 scientists who went on to become Nobel
laureates, although not necessarily in the year in which they
were named.
IP&S, which sells data, bases its forecasts on the number of
times a scientist's work is cited by others in published papers.
Citations can reflect a study's influence, but also serve as
a way of measuring a scientist's standing. And since Nobel
nominations come from past winners and leading scientists,
reputation counts.
Scientists selected as "Citation Laureates" rank in the top
1 percent of citations in their research areas.
"That is a signpost that the research wielded a lot of
impact," said Christopher King, an analyst with IP&S who helped
select the winners.
Among the predicted winners for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
are Emmanuelle Charpentier of Helmholtz Center for Infection
Research in Germany and Jennifer Doudna of the University of
California, Berkeley. They were picked for their development of
the CRISPR-Cas9 method for genome editing.
The technique has taken biology by storm, igniting fierce
patent battles between start-up companies and universities, and
touching off ethical debates over its potential for editing
human embryos. ID:nL5N11O24Q
Missing from the list is Feng Zhang, a researcher at the
MIT-Harvard Broad Institute, who owns a broad U.S. patent on the
technology, which is the subject of a legal battle. King said he
was aware of Zhang's claims on the technology, but noted that
his scientific citations did not rise to the level of a
nomination.
Other contenders for the chemistry prize, which will be
awarded on Oct. 7 in Stockholm, include John Goodenough of the
University of Texas Austin, and Stanley Whittingham of
Binghamton University in New York for research leading to the
development of the lithium-ion battery.
Also in contention is Carolyn Bertozzi of Stanford
University for her contributions to "bioorthogonal chemistry,"
which refers to chemical reactions in live cells and organisms.
Bertozzi's lab is using the process to develop smart probes for
medical imaging.
For the Nobel in medicine, to be announced Oct. 5, Thomson
Reuters picked Kazutoshi Mori of Kyoto University and Peter
Walter of the University of California, San Francisco. They
showed that a mechanism known as the unfolded protein response
acts as a "quality control system" inside cells, deciding
whether damaged cells live or die.
Other contenders include Jeffrey Gordon of Washington
University in St. Louis for showing a relationship between diet
and metabolism and microbes that live in the human gut.
The group also picked a trio of researchers - Alexander
Rudensky of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Dr. Shimon
Sakaguchi of Osaka University, and Ethan Shevach of the National
Institutes of Health - for discoveries relating to immune cells
known as regulatory T cells and the function of Foxp3, a master
regulator of these cells.
For the prizes in physics and economics, to be announced
Oct. 6 and 12 respectively, Thomson Reuters predicts winners
from scientists who helped pave the way for making X-ray lasers
and work that helped explain the impact of policy decisions on
labor markets and consumer demand.
Science enthusiasts can weigh in with their own predictions
by taking part in Thomson Reuters' "People's Choice" prizes at
StateOfInnovation.com.