The main theme of Lander’s essay was important and correct. “Scientific breakthroughs are rarely eureka moments,” he concluded. “They are typically ensemble acts, played out over a decade or more, in which the cast becomes part of something greater than what any one of them could do alone.” Yet the article clearly had another thrust, one that was done with a velvet glove but was nonetheless an unmistakable diminishment of Doudna. Oddly for an academic journal, Cell did not disclose that Lander’s Broad Institute was competing for patents with Doudna and her colleagues.
