• The above Act and the National Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical and Health Research involving human participants, 2017, by the Indian Council of Medical                   Research (ICMR), and the Biomedical and Health Research Regulation Bill implies regulation of the gene-editing process.

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• This is especially so in the usage of its language “modification, deletion or removal of parts of heritable material”.
• However, there is no explicit mention of the term gene editing.
• The Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2020 has been awarded for the discovery of CRISPR Cas9. The two scientists have pioneered the use of CRISPR – Cas9 (CRISPR-associated protein 9) system as a gene-editing tool.
• In 1987a group of Japanese researchers observed an unusual homologous DNA sequence bearing direct repeats with spacing in a eubacterial gene.
• In subsequent years CRISPR was discovered and showed to be a bacterial adaptive immune system and to act on DNA targets.
• A notable discovery on the use of CRISPR as a gene-editing tool was by a Lithuanian biochemist, Virginijus Šikšnys, in 2012.
• Šikšnys showed that Cas9 could cut purified DNA in a test tube, the same discovery for which both Charpentier and Doudna were given the credit.
• Thus, the exclusion of Siksnys from this year’s Nobel is going to raise discussions.