The cosmic origin of the water is worth a Nobel Prize

Dutchwoman Ewine van Dishoeck received the most votes when the European magazine Chemistry Views conducted a reader survey last fall on who their readers believe will be awarded this year's Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Ewine van Dishoeck is an astrochemist and has done groundbreaking work on how water molecules are formed in large gas and dust clouds in space. Stars and planets all originate in such clouds and therefore they are also called the nursery of the universe.

Our own solar system also originated in an interstellar cloud that collapsed some 4.5 billion years ago. But long before that, hydrogen and oxygen atoms had found each other and joined forces with water molecules, which then filled the Earth's first ocean.

But the big favorite for this year's chemistry prize is the Crispr-Cas9 gene scissors, which have revolutionized the technology of cutting and pasting genes. Almost every week new scientific articles are published that improve the gene scissors. It's a technology that has exploded since the Nobel-tipped Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna published the first article in 2012.

But while the technology is so promising, there are major ethical problems. The international research community has agreed that Crspr-Cas9 should absolutely not be used on human germ cells or embryos for the purpose of genetically modifying children. The risks are too great and in addition the modified genes will be inherited by future generations.

However, it became known to the world in November 2018 that two genetically modified twin girls had been born in China. The Chinese scientist, He Jiankui, was internationally condemned and since he can no longer be found, it is assumed that he is imprisoned.

The idea that researchers themselves would refrain from genetically modifying children did not hold. At the end of August this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched a global system to register all clinical research on both normal cells and germ cells as well as embryos. The purpose is to get an overview.

"No country should allow any research on human germ cells and embryos for the purpose of genetically modifying humans until all technical and ethical issues have been properly investigated," said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO secretary general in a press release.