The CRISPR patent fight enters its name-calling phase

The dispute over who discovered the CRISPR genome editing technique used to hinge on which party was first. Now it’s escalated to accusations of outright lies.

As STAT’s Sharon Begley reports, a new filing from the University of California claims that scientists at the rival Broad Institute were dishonest with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office when it came to describing their work, saying that Broad scientist Feng Zhang “presented incomplete, cherry-picked data” to make it seem like he had successfully edited DNA. (The Broad dismissed the allegations as “baseless” and called UC’s tactic “unfortunate for the entire field.”)

Meanwhile, the nearly four-year-long dispute between the institutions marches on, with yet another hearing on the horizon.

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