Lander wrote an article in &quot;Cell&quot; about the history as he saw it of the invention of the Crispr technique.  It covered the bases but was flawed, but it did include a lot of scientists that weren&#x27;t included before. The article basically tries to discredit it.  It wasn&#x27;t a great argument and frankly the authors not a impartial (Friends with one of the scientist, and works at one of the universities)  I&#x27;m surprised it made it this far on Hacker News.<p>There is a patent dispute about who owns the patent on this technique. Lots of money is potentially at stake.  This article was written from one of the parties (Broad institute and UC Berkely) being one of them.  
Oddly the Lander article supports the notion that this invention is evolution not revolutionary.<p>Broad has been working to move from from CRISPR&#x2F;CAS9 to CRISPR&#x2F;Something else better).  The UC Berkley seems to have come up with it first, but is it obvious or obvious to use in editing is the question.  The UC [2]team has pulled all there patent claims and resubmitted them twice, presumably to broaden the scope and cover any use.  Add some east coast&#x2F;west coast rivalry and some other  biases and you have a powder keg of science.<p>Anyway lots of blame to go around.<p>siyer posted this in a previous article which puts the patent dispute in context and if the patent is only cas9:<p>[1]<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ipscell.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;01&#x2F;patent-expert-weighs-in-on-crispr-dispute-between-uc-broad&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ipscell.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;01&#x2F;patent-expert-weighs-in-on-cr...</a><p>and the strange patent application by UC and :<p>[2]<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;law.stanford.edu&#x2F;2015&#x2F;12&#x2F;29&#x2F;the-crispr-patent-interference-showdown-is-on-how-did-we-get-here-and-what-comes-next&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;law.stanford.edu&#x2F;2015&#x2F;12&#x2F;29&#x2F;the-crispr-patent-interf...</a>