The CRISPR-Cas9 gene scissors are a gene-editing technology expected to free humanity from the fear of disease and even bring about a new agricultural revolution, because they can simply convert a mutant gene into a normal form. U.S. market research firm Custom Market Insights (CMI) predicted that the CRISPR-Cas9 gene scissors market will grow from 8 trillion won in 2025 to 34 trillion won in 2034.
Professor Kim Jin-su of the KAIST Graduate School of Convergence Bioscience and Technology is leading the world in gene editing. Kim developed CRISPR-Cas9 gene scissors technology almost simultaneously with U.S. scientists that included Nobel laureates, but was the first to file patents for technologies applicable to complex cells such as those in humans and crops.
A study found that Korea must produce second and third Professor Kim Jin-sus to take the global lead in science. Over the past half-century, science has been led by so-called Pasteur-type scientists who, like Kim, conduct basic research while filing patents at the same time. Contrary to the conventional belief that focusing solely on research is necessary to write excellent papers, scientists who also filed patents and considered applications released papers with higher citation counts.
◇ scientists who pursue basic and applied research simultaneously stand out
A research team led by Matt Marx of the Cornell University SC Johnson College of Business said in Science on Feb. 28 that "researchers in the 'Pasteur quadrant' who released papers while filing patents at the same time had more citations and produced more innovative patents than researchers who focused on only one side."
The concept of the Pasteur quadrant was first proposed in 1997 by U.S. political scientist Donald Stokes. It categorizes scientific research along two axes: "pursuit of fundamental understanding" and "pursuit of practical objectives," and says that Pasteur, a pioneer of vaccines, achieved both goals at the same time. Humanity was also saved from COVID-19 thanks to vaccine research that traces back 200 years to Pasteur.
In contrast, the mainstream scientific community thought of basic research and applications separately. Many said Pasteur was an exceptional case and that one must focus solely on research to write good papers. In particular, they believed that if a young researcher paid attention to patents, divided focus could hurt creativity and the quality of research. To see whether this idea holds, Professor Marx analyzed the papers and patents produced by U.S. scientists over the past half-century.
A joint team from Cornell University and the University of California, Berkeley analyzed millions of papers and related U.S. patents from 1976 to 2023. They identified 682,199 Pasteur quadrant researchers who released papers while filing patents. Compared separately with pure scientists who focused only on papers and inventors who filed only patents, Pasteur-type researchers had papers with higher citation counts and more innovative patents. It means the researchers who captured both basic research and applications led science.
Notably, Pasteur-type scientists stood out even at the very beginning of their research careers. It demonstrates that young researchers pursuing basic and applied work simultaneously does not harm the quality of subsequent scientific research. The authors said, "We hope these findings help deepen understanding of several questions, including the optimization of funding allocation between basic and applied research, the process of technology transfer from academia to industry, and science-based entrepreneurship."
◇ in patent litigation, Korea ahead of Nobel laureates
CRISPR-Cas9 gene scissors are a representative example showing the strengths of Pasteur-type researchers. CRISPR-Cas9 consists of a guide RNA that seeks out the problematic gene DNA and binds to it like a zipper, and Cas9, an enzyme protein that cuts at the binding site. The technology came from basic research on bacteria. Bacteria keep a marker of part of the genes of invading viruses and later chop up a virus with the same genes on the spot with enzyme proteins.
Jennifer Doudna of UC Berkeley and Emmanuelle Charpentier, director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Germany, received the 2020 Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing CRISPR-Cas9 gene scissors technology. But Kim was ahead in patents for technologies that can use gene scissors in medicine and agriculture.
The CVC group, which included the Nobel laureates, released its findings in Science in June 2012, but the experiments were at the level of simple prokaryotic cells like bacteria. Evidence that it actually works in complex eukaryotic cells such as humans, animals, and plants was presented by Professor Kim Jin-su, then at Seoul National University, and Professor Feng Zhang of the Broad Institute jointly founded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University.
The Broad Institute released its paper on Jan. 3, 2013, and Professor Kim Jin-su on Jan. 29. Professor Kim said, "It was the Seoul National University team that first proved that CRISPR-Cas9 can cut DNA in human cells," adding, "The Broad Institute's paper was released three weeks earlier than ours, but fortunately we filed the patent first in 2012."
Recently, Kim gained the upper hand in an international patent lawsuit over CRISPR-Cas9 that has lasted nearly 13 years. In September, the China National Intellectual Property Administration court ruled in favor of ToolGen, a corporations founded by Kim, in a patent invalidation suit filed against UC Berkeley's CVC.
Last month, ToolGen obtained a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for "direct intracellular delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complexes." CVC voluntarily withdrew its CRISPR-Cas9 patent last year in the European Union (EU) court. Korea has, in effect, secured a core technology to lead the bioindustry. On this, the scientific community and industry say the future of Korean science lies with second and third Professor Kim Jin-sus who pursue both basic and applied research at the same time.
References
Science (2025), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adx3736
Nature Biotechnology (2013), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.2507
Science (2013), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1231143
Science (2012), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1225829