The CRISPR patents are back in play. On Monday, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said scientists Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier will get another chance to show they ought to own the key patents. The pair shared a 2020 Nobel Prize for developing the gene-editing system. But when US patent rights were granted in 2014 to Feng Zhang of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, the decision set off a bitter dispute in which hundreds of millions of dollars – as well as scientific bragging rights – are at stake. The new decision is a boost for the Nobelists, who had previously faced a string of demoralising reversals over the patent rights in both the US and Europe. MIT Technology Review (paywall)

 

 

Glyphosate, the world’s most widely used herbicide, may significantly raise the risk of an increasingly common chronic liver disease — even at low exposure levels, according to a new review of more than 40 scientific studies published over the past 17 years. It found a growing body of research links exposure to glyphosate – and the commercial herbicides that contain it — to negative health outcomes for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD). Harmful impacts to the liver include inflammation, oxidative stress, and scarring (fibrosis), all markers of MASLD, according to the review published in Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology. Even small increases in exposure may have significant health impacts over time, especially for people with other risk factors for liver disease, the researchers say. US Right to Know

 

 

Georgia has become the second US state to shield maker of Roundup from cancer lawsuits. The legislation is written broadly enough to provide legal protection in Georgia to any pesticide manufacturer. North Dakota's governor signed the first "Cancer Gag Act" last month. The new Georgia law is to take effect January 1. That means it won't affect existing cases, such as a March decision by a Georgia jury to award nearly $2.1 billion in damages to a man who alleged Roundup caused his cancer. The Sentinel-Record

 

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