b'The World Got a New Pair of Scissors!IN A LONG-EXPECTEDmove, the Royalset a number of goals to be reached by 2030, such as Swedish Academy of Sciences decided to awarda reduction by 50% of the use and risk of chemical pes-the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020 to Emmanuelleticides; a reduction by 50% of the use of more hazard-Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, for the develop- ous pesticides; a reduction of nutrient losses by at least ment of a method for genome editing. More pre- 50%, while ensuring no deterioration in soil fertility; cisely they got the prize for being the inventors ofa reduction of fertilizer use by at least 20%; and 25% the CRISPR-CAS genome editing tool. Finally, Wellof total farmland to be organically farmed. And these deserved, History was made and Years in thevery ambitious goals (some say unrealistic), cant be making were some of the frequent terms to describeachieved without the tremendous and ongoing efforts MARCEL BRUINS the decision.of the plant breeding and seed sector. These sectors is editor of EuropeanAnd whats more, with four women in total receiv- will prove to be crucial going forward and achiev-Seed Magazine.ing a Nobel Prize in 2020, it marks an importanting those goals. But plant breeding is a long process, step towards acknowledging the important role thatand on average it takes six to 15 years to create a new women play in research and arts. The Nobel Prizevariety. With CRISPR we could achieve the same result started in 1901 and as of 2020, out of 930 winners, onlymuch faster and with more precision and accuracy. 57 women have won the Nobel Prize (6%). Their invention already has had a revolutionary impact on life sciences, despite the fact that the tool is less than a decade old. Adding to the revolutionary impact of the invention, it is good to realize that most. With four women in total receiving a Nobel Nobel Prizes are based on research that spans two, three, or more decades. Just imagine that in 2011, thereprize in 2020, it marks an important step were less than 100 published papers on CRISPR. Andtowards acknowledging the important role that this year (2020), that number had risen to over 35,000! Doudna and Charpentier published their ground- women play in research and arts. breaking scientific publication on CRISPR in 2012 and since then it has received more than 6,000 citations already. There are only 700 scientific papers out of 50 million, published since 1970, have received that many.CRISPR-CAS has opened up avenues to moreThe trouble is that since the infamous decision in efficient plant breeding and researchers have alreadyJuly 2018 by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), been able to develop the first crops that are able toEurope is faced with the fact that the CRISPR tech-better withstand climate threats, such as drought toler- nique (and several other very promising ones) falls ance, as well as new pests and diseases. But CRISPR iswithin the legal definition of genetic modification. The also contributing to new cancer therapies, and manycosts of developing and getting approval for a geneti-important discoveries in basic research. cally modified plant variety is estimated at well over 100 Not only the academic world jumped on the inven- million . So, the ECJ decision places CRISPR fully out tion. Many new companies were created to developof reach for many small and medium sized plant breed-products with the help of this technique, from thera- ing companies, as well as for the public sector plant pies for genetic diseases to engineered crops. Andbreeders and only the largest companies would have particularly relevant in our pandemic times: scientiststhe resources to benefit from CRISPRs full potential. have even developed a CRISPR-based test to detectLets hope that the Nobel Prize on CRISPR will SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. provide sufficient recognition and awareness to push And why is this all so important? Currently, thefor a science-based decision process and speed up the EU Green Deal and its Farm to Fork Strategy are tworegulatory discussion on the use of this technique and major policies coming to head in the EU. These policiesother plant breeding innovations.SWDECEMBER 2020SEEDWORLD.COM /117'