THE HINDU – CURRENT NOTE 26 February
Two endangered plant species spotted
•In a major breakthrough in eco-conservation, forest officials in Munnar have spotted two critically endangered impatiens plant species on the peripheries of the Eravikulam National Park.
•Impatiens, also called jewel weeds, are seen in pristine forests where moisture content and relative humidity are high. The Eravikulam National Park and the Mankulam forest division are surrounded by sholas. Two new species of balsams (impatiens) have been discovered by the officials from the shola forests on the periphery of the park and Mankulam with the help of scientists.
•The Munnar-Mankulam landscape is famous for impatiens varieties, one of which was Impatiens travancorica that was spotted sometime ago.
•One of the new plants, Impatiens panduranganii , was first noticed in 2015 by Prasad G., wildlife warden of Munnar, during a research on impatiens in the Pettimudi area. It is similar to Impatiens travancorica.
•Talking to The Hindu , Mr Prasad said the number of species then spotted was very low due to the unscientific road construction to Edamalakudy.
•Only below 35 plants with flower could be found in 2015. In 2016, when Prabhu Kumar of Kottakkal Arya Vaidyasala visited Munnar, there were about 200 and 300 of the plants, which were named Impatiens panduranganii .
Extraordinary leave is not matter of right: Delhi HC
•Legal entitlement to leave is with regard to leave which is authorised, like maternity leave or child care leave. However, extraordinary leave is not a matter of right, the Delhi High Court has said. Justice Valmiki Mehta has held that the “grant of extraordinary leave is not a matter of legal right and every employer, before granting extraordinary leave, has to balance various aspects, including the working requirement of the employer not being affected on account of leave sought by an employee”.
•The court made the observation while dismissing the petition of a woman, appointed Assistant Director, Library, Reference, Research, Documentation and Information Service, against the order of her termination from service passed by the disciplinary authority of the Rajya Sabha secretariat.
•The court in this case noted that of a total of approximately 10 years of service till December 2014, the woman had been on leave for 1,917 days — around 5½/6 years.
•The woman had challenged her termination from service on account of her unauthorised absence, i.e remaining absent from duty without any leave being sanctioned after proceeding on maternity leave.
•She had argued that unauthorised absence could not lead to automatic termination of services.
‘Recalcitrant employee’
•The Rajya Sabha secretariat, on the other hand, contended that she was clearly a “recalcitrant employee”.
•In the instant case, the woman had applied for maternity leave of 180 days from November, 2013. The maternity leave was granted to her with leave coming to an end on May 16, 2015. Claiming that she needed to look after the baby, she applied for extraordinary leave of another 180 days which was also granted.
•Thereafter, claiming that she had no family support in India, she went to the U.K. to join her husband, and again sought extraordinary leave which was not granted.
•But she did not rejoin duty despite being served office memorandum. She failed to appear for enquiry.
•The Rajya Sabha secretariat told the court that the detailed report discussed all aspects, and evidence led to hold the petitioner guilty of unauthorised absence from duty, and conduct unbecoming of a government servant. “The present is a case of an employee wanting to do her duties at her own convenience, which cannot be permitted,” the court observed.
Pests eat away 35% of total crop yield, says ICAR scientist
•About 30-35% of the annual crop yield in India gets wasted because of pests, according to P.K. Chakrabarty, assistant director general (plant protection and biosafety) of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. He said that among such pests, nematodes (microscopic worms many of which are parasites) had recently emerged as a major threat to crops in the country and they caused loss of 60 million tonnes of crops annually. He also said that such large-scale crop-loss was having an adverse effect on the agricultural biosafety which was “paramount to food security.”
•“Nematodes, consisting of roundworms, threadworms and eelworms, are causing loss of crops to the tune of almost 60 million tonnes or 10-12 % of crop production every year,” said Mr. Chakrabarty. He was speaking at the XIII Annual Group Meeting of All India Co-ordinated Research Project (AICRP) on Nematodes in Cropping System in the city on Friday. “The farmers are still not fully aware about these potential crop-destroyers,” he added.
•The Dean of Indian Council of Agricultural Research HS Gaur expressed his apprehension about the spread of nematode in the country. Citing the instance of a particular kind of nematode which affected plants such as potatoes and tomatoes, he said the Potato Cyst Nematode was first discovered in the Nilgiris and had now spread to various parts of the country.
Black rhinos on the brink of extinction
•As the value of rhinoceros horn touches $65,000 per kg, poaching has begun to drive the African black rhinoceros to “the verge of extinction” - not just by reducing its population size, but by erasing 70% of the species’ genetic diversity - says a research paper published recently in Scientific Reports.
•Genetic variation is the cornerstone of evolution, without which there can be no natural selection, and so a low genetic diversity decreases the ability of a species to survive and reproduce, explains lead author Yoshan Moodley, Professor at the Department of Zoology, University of Venda in South Africa.
•Two centuries ago, the black rhinoceros – which roamed much of sub Saharan Africa – had 64 different genetic lineages; but today only 20 of these lineages remain, says the paper. The species is now restricted to five countries, South Africa, Namibia, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Tanzania. Genetically unique populations that once existed in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Mozambique, Malawi and Angola have disappeared.
•The origins of the ‘genetic erosion’ coincided with colonial rule in Africa and the popularity of big game hunting. From the second half of the 20th century, however, poaching for horns has dramatically depleted their population and genetic diversity, especially in Kenya and Tanzania.
Museum collection
•For the study, scientists used genetic data obtained from existing animals and museum samples (rhinoceros parts preserved in museum collections).
•The paper calls for “a complete re-evaluation of current conservation management paradigms” for the black rhinoceros. “By identifying the genetic units remaining for surviving rhinos, we are effectively defining the boundaries within which management (be it translocations to increase genetic diversity or consolidation of populations for more effective protection) can be carried out without negatively affecting the gene pool,” co-author Michael W. Bruford, Professor at Cardiff School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, U.K told The Hindu.
•Greater the genetic diversity, the better is the population's ability to respond to pressures such as climate change and diseases, said Prof. Bruford. “Thus the loss of so much evolutionary potential in the black rhino is worrying for its future adaptability.”
Why India needs the rubella vaccine?
•Buoyed by the elimination of polio six years ago and maternal and neonatal tetanus and yaws in 2016, India has set an ambitious target of eliminating measles and controlling congenital rubella syndrome (CRS), caused by the rubella virus, by 2020. While two doses of measles vaccine given at 9-12 months and 16-24 months have already been part of the national immunisation programme, it is the first time that the rubella vaccine has been included in the programme. Since the rubella vaccine will piggy-back on the measles elimination programme, there will be very little additional cost.
•According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), “a single dose of rubella vaccine gives more than 95% long-lasting immunity.” All children aged nine months and 15 years will be administered a single dose of the combination vaccine.
•Measles is highly infectious and is one of the major childhood killer diseases. Of the 1,34,000 measles deaths globally in 2015, an estimated 47,000 occurred in India. The introduction of the second dose of the measles vaccine and an increase in vaccine coverage have led to a sharp decline in deaths in India — from an estimated 1,00,000 deaths in 2010 to 47,000 in 2015. Unlike measles, rubella is a mild viral infection that mainly occurs in children. But a woman infected with the rubella virus during the early stage of pregnancy has a 90% chance of transmitting it to the foetus. The virus can cause hearing impairments, eye and heart defects and brain damage in newborns, and even spontaneous abortion and foetal deaths. Of the 1,10,000 children born with CRS every year globally, an estimated 40,000 cases occur in India alone.
Why opt for a campaign?
•With the target set for 2020 to eliminate measles and control CRS, there is a compelling need to create a solid wall of immunity in all children up to 15 years in one go at the earliest. That can be achieved only if immunisation is carried out in a campaign mode by targeting 410 million children nationwide within 18 months. About 465 million doses will be required. Since the Pune-based Serum Institute of India is the only manufacturer of the vaccine, the measles-rubella vaccination campaign is being introduced in phases. Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Goa and Lakshadweep are covered in the first phase.
•The entire country will be covered in four phases in 18 months. Following the campaign, two doses of the combination vaccine will become a part of the national immunisation programme. All children will receive the vaccine free at 9-12 months and 16-24 months of age.
•Is it possible to achieve the goal by 2020?
•According to Dr. Jacob John, co-chairman of the India Expert Advisory Group for measles and rubella, it is eminently doable. Though the goal is only to eliminate measles and control rubella by 2020, both viruses can be eliminated if their transmission can be broken. For that to happen, the vaccine coverage has to be over 95% during the campaign and in the immunisation programme that follows it. Now the measles vaccine coverage for the first dose is about 87% and 70% for the second dose. Under the routine immunisation programme, the reach of the first dose of the measles vaccine shot up from 56% in 2000 to 87% in 2015. Furthermore, India has to ramp up surveillance of both diseases, maintain outbreak preparedness, respond rapidly to outbreaks by vaccinating all children in a community and ensure effective and timely treatment of cases anywhere in the country. According to the WHO, elimination of measles will help to achieve Sustainable Development Goal’s target 3.2, which aims to end preventable deaths of chi ldren under 5 years by 2030.
There is more to come in the CRISPR story
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently issued a key verdict in the battle over the intellectual property rights to the potentially lucrative gene-editing technique CRISPR–Cas9.
It ruled that the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, could keep its patents on using CRISPR–Cas9 in eukaryotic cells. That was a blow to the University of California, Berkeley, which had filed its own patents and had hoped to have the Broad’s thrown out.
The fight goes back to 2012, when Jennifer Doudna at Berkeley; Emmanuelle Charpentier, then at the University of Vienna; and their colleagues outlined how CRISPR–Cas9 could be used to precisely cut isolated DNA. In 2013, Feng Zhang at the Broad and his colleagues — and other teams — showed how it could be adapted to edit DNA in eukaryotic cells such as plants, livestock and humans.
Berkeley filed for a patent earlier, but the USPTO granted the Broad’s patents first — and last week upheld them. There are high stakes involved in the ruling. The holder of key patents could make millions of dollars from CRISPR–Cas9’s applications in industry: Already, the technique has sped up genetic research, and scientists are using it to develop disease-resistant livestock and treatments for human diseases.
But the fight for patent rights to CRISPR technology is by no means over. Here are four reasons why.
1. Berkeley can appeal the ruling.
Berkeley has two months to appeal the USPTO’s ruling — and may well do so. A key question is how confident Berkeley feels that its own patents, once granted, would cover the most lucrative applications of gene editing in eukaryotic cells, such as generating new crops or human therapies.
The Broad’s victory centred on a key difference: that its patents specified how CRISPR could be adapted for use in eukaryotic cells and Berkeley’s did not. This is why the USPTO ruled that the Broad’s patents would not interfere with the granting of Berkeley’s, and so should be allowed to stand.
Berkeley’s team was quick to argue, in the wake of the decision, that its patent — if granted in its current state — would cover the use of CRISPR–Cas9 in any cell. That, the team says, would mean someone wanting to sell a product made using CRISPR–Cas9 in eukaryotic cells would need to license patents from both Berkeley and the Broad.
Yet the details of the USPTO’s ruling could weaken Berkeley’s chances of enforcing its patents in eukaryotic cells, patent scholars say. For example, much of the USPTO’s 50-page decision argues that the use of CRISPR–Cas9 in eukaryotic cells — described in the Broad patent — required additional invention beyond that described in the Berkeley patent application.
So Berkeley may feel that it must still appeal. And its intellectual property is already licensed to several companies that intend to deploy CRISPR–Cas9 in eukaryotic cells. Those companies will probably prefer not to have to pay for a license from the Broad as well.
2. European patents are still up for grabs.
Both teams have filed similar patents in Europe and are still battling for patent rights there.
And the decision in Europe may not necessarily follow the same path as the USPTO, notes Catherine Coombes, a patent lawyer at the intellectual property specialists HGF in York, England.
On the basis of European case law, the European Patent Office could choose to assess whether the discovery of the general gene-editing system described in the Berkeley patent prompted “sufficient motivation” to try to make the leap to eukaryotic cells. If European judges find this to be the case, they could rule that the Berkeley patent covers eukaryotic applications of CRISPR–Cas9.
That could give Berkeley an edge that it lacked in the United States. “The fact that six groups got CRISPR–Cas9 to work in a eukaryotic environment within weeks of one another shows that in the field there was clear motivation to try,” says Coombes.
Even so, there is likely to be no quick resolution to the European patent battle either: Coombes estimates that it could drag out for another five years or more.
3. Other parties are also claiming patent rights on CRISPR–Cas9.
Attention has focused on the Berkeley–Broad battle because their patents are fairly broad and are seen as being crucial to most commercial applications of CRISPR–Cas9. But there are 763 patent families (groups of related patents) that claim Cas9, according to the consulting firm IPStudies near Lausanne, Switzerland. Of those, some claim patent rights to certain aspects of CRISPR–Cas9 gene editing. Over time, holders of those patents may try to assert those rights.
That may not happen until companies that use CRISPR–Cas9 start to make money from their products. At that point, someone who owns a related patent may sue for infringement and ask for royalties.
When the time comes, look for plenty of patent holders to come calling, says Jacob Sherkow, an intellectual property scholar at New York Law School in New York City. “Everybody and their third cousin twice removed is going to be claiming they have some inventorship interest in the Broad’s patent,” he says. “The Broad is going to be fighting those battles for years.”
4. CRISPR technology is moving beyond what the patents cover.
Researchers in academia and industry have been pushing CRISPR gene editing beyond the scope of the Broad and Berkeley patents.
Both patent families cover the use of CRISPR–Cas9, which relies on the Cas9 enzyme to cut DNA. But there are alternatives to Cas9 that provide other functions, and a way to sidestep the Berkeley–Broad patent fight.
One attractive alternative is Cpf1, an enzyme that may be simpler to use and more accurate than Cas9 in some cases. The Broad has already filed patents on applications of Cpf1 in gene editing, and has licensed them to the biotech company Editas Medicine in Cambridge (which also has licenses for some Broad patents on CRISPR–Cas9). In all, there are already 28 patent families that claim Cpf1, according to IPStudies, and not all of them are from the Broad.
Reports of other enzymes are trickling in. In December, researchers at Berkeley said that they had found two new Cas9 alternatives, CasX and CasY3. And some researchers may already be trying to patent unpublished alternatives — U.S. patent applications typically do not become public until 18 months after they are filed.
Sherkow likens the situation to the early days of PCR (the polymerase chain reaction), a technique used to amplify segments of DNA that quickly became a vital tool in molecular biology. Laboratories initially used just one enzyme, Taq1 polymerase, to carry out the protocol.
“Now if you go through the catalog, there’s almost an Amazon warehouse of polymerases that you can use depending on the particular reaction that you want to do,” he says.
People are tethering the commercialization aspect of CRISPR to this particular patent fight, Sherkow says. “That’s missing some of the broader picture.”
