GSK forms CRISPR alliance with UC Berkeley and UCSF to create functional genomics insitute. Coupla of points ought to be added (thread). statnews.com/2019/06/13/gsk…
The main one, technologywise, is this about using CRISPR as a gene function screen. I can't explain it, but in short, you can do a gazillion experiments at once, fleshing out connections, sketching the biology, finding drug targets. ucsf.edu/news/2018/07/4…
The other is a policy issue. GSK is paying $67 million for a squad of UC scientists whose activities, via a board, they help DIRECT. Plus GSK has exclusive right of refusal on all the IP, both drug targets and tech. Gotta wonder why public employees working for this drug company
People don't seem to recall or much care a very similar deal in 1999, between Novartis and UC Berkeley, caused an absolute sh*tstorm, and headlines like "The Kept University." in fact, no one even seemed to be aware of this history berkeley.edu/news/media/rel…
Times change? Academia changes? Technology changes? Per Jonathan Weissman, of UCSF, this industry funded activity is good because academics aren't position to scale up this screening tech, and putting it in a startup kind of walls it off.
The problem of being deeply involved with industry though is that it creates a conflict of interest. What is the CRISPR tech we're going to get? Already, decisions of all sorts are fundamentally colored by the financial interests of the parties developing it.
During a conference call with journalists, Hal Barron, CSO of GSK, repeatedly called CRISPR "ENORMOUSLY POWERFUL." Yes, and with enormous power comes enormous responsibility. Want to think about whether CRISPR activities in academia, already highly commercial, should be more so
Lastly, a reporter asked Jennifer Doudna if this outfit would edit embryos. "THERE IS NO INTENTION RIGHT NOW TO BE EDITING EMBRYOS IN THIS CENTER," she said. more cells and organoids. But I was surprised this needed a qualification of 'right now.' maybe later? door open? /end
PS. exactly what was said on germline CRISPR from the transcript.
PPS. per UC berkeley, GSK does not have a right of refusal. They have an option to license exclusively. these are different in that the former lets you spoil a deal you didnt take at first.
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Discussion of a recent Wapo editorial concerning the earliest sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 in China, based on recovered messages from a commercial scientists in China. The earliest date has never been clear to me.
The Wapo editorial states "On Jan. 5, after a 40-hour shift in the lab, professor Yong-Zhen Zhang of Fudan University in Shanghai sequenced the genome based on a sample from Wuhan."
I have also seen the claim that the Wuhan Institute of Virology sequenced the virus on or about Jan. 5th.
Following huge IPO, synthetic biology company Ginkgo Bioworks has seen stock decline ~ 67%. It now has a market cap of ~ $5 to 6 billion. That's around its valuation in last venture rounds before going public (considering company now has about $1.7 billion in cash). 🧵
This thread went on to discuss share sales by Viking Global---but a tweeter says I have misread the document (share conversion instead of share sale). Thread deleted until i figure it out!
Yeah, looks like a share conversion. I was wrong about the sale of shares. Thread retracted.
Listening to Knight Foundation session on misinformation and Covid-19. Covid origins reporter Jane Qui with interesting remarks about overt and covert campaigns by China and US governments.
overt is like China foreign minister saying that covid comes from Ft. Detrick
covert is US gov official feeding their lab leak suspicions to reporters, who report suspicions and convert them into a form of evidence
says China finds "virality" inherently threatening.
"china has a strong machine to censor, and they don't like anything to go viral"
The term is, in fact, a novel invention. I searched Google for it.
Excluding Altos Labs from the search, and disregarding first two hits (that are still about Altos), yielded a single prior occurrence. That was on the Facebook page of a doctor involved in anti aging.
$3 billion is exactly twice the $1.5 billion committed to Calico, the earlier longevity research company started by Larry Page, Google, in 2013 technologyreview.com/2016/12/15/693…