Francisco Mojica
Born
Francisco Juan Martínez Mojica

(1963-10-05) 5 October 1963 (age 60)
Elche, Spain
Alma materUniversity of Valencia, University of Alicante
Known forDiscovery of CRISPR
Scientific career
FieldsMolecular biology, microbiology
InstitutionsUniversity of Alicante

Francisco Juan Martínez Mojica[a] (born 5 October 1963) is a Spanish molecular biologist and microbiologist at the University of Alicante in Spain. He is known for his discovery of repetitive, functional DNA sequences in bacteria which he named CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats). These were later developed into the first widespread genome editing tool, CRISPR-Cas9.[1]

Early life and education

Mojica was born in Elche, Spain, on 5 October 1963. He attended Los Andes elementary school, Vázquez de Mella school, and Instituto Carrus high school. He enrolled first at the University of Murcia to study biology and later moved to the University of Valencia (BS, 1986) and University of Alicante (PhD, 1993). During his doctoral studies, he visited Paris-Sud University. He then received post-doctoral training at the University of Utah and the University of Oxford. Since 1994, Mojica has been a faculty member at the University of Alicante, where he has focused on molecular microbiology, which led to his discovery of the CRISPR system.

Career and research

The discovery of CRISPR

Mojica was the first researcher to characterize what is now called a CRISPR locus, reported in 1993. Part of the sequence was reported previously by Yoshizumi Ishino in 1987. Mojica described the complete gene sequence repeats in the archaeal organisms Haloferax and Haloarcula species, and studied their function.[2] He continued research on these sequences throughout the 1990s, and in 2000, Mojica recognized that what had been reported as disparate repeat sequences actually shared a common set of features, now known to be the hallmarks of CRISPR sequences. He coined the term CRISPR through correspondence with Ruud Jansen of Utrecht University, proposing the acronym of Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats to alleviate the confusion stemming from the numerous acronyms used to describe the sequences in scientific literature.

CRISPR as a microbial immune system

In 2003, Mojica wrote the first paper suggesting that CRISPR was an innate microbial immune system. The paper was rejected by a series of high-profile journals, including Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Molecular Microbiology and Nucleic Acids Research, before finally being accepted by Journal of Molecular Evolution in February, 2005.[3][4]

Awards and honors

Honorary Degrees received

Publications

(A selection from those mentioned in the institutional page of the Universidad de Alicante,[13] and those referred by Lander in the article The Heroes of CRISPR[14])

References

Notes

  1. ^ In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Martínez and the second or maternal family name is Mojica.

Sources

  1. ^ Ledford, Heidi (January 2017), "Five big mysteries about CRISPR's origins", Nature, 541 (7637): 280–282, Bibcode:2017Natur.541..280L, doi:10.1038/541280a, PMID 28102279, S2CID 4458992
  2. ^ Mojica, F. J. M.; Juez, G.; Rodriguez-Valera, F. (1993). "Transcription at different salinities of Haloferax mediterranei sequences adjacent to partially modified PstI sites". Molecular Microbiology. Wiley. 9 (3): 613–621. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2958.1993.tb01721.x. ISSN 0950-382X. PMID 8412707. S2CID 23548049.
  3. ^ Mojica, Francisco J. M.; Díez-Villaseñor, César; García-Martínez, Jesús; Soria, Elena (February 2005). "Intervening sequences of regularly spaced prokaryotic repeats derive from foreign genetic elements". Journal of Molecular Evolution. 60 (2): 174–182. Bibcode:2005JMolE..60..174M. doi:10.1007/s00239-004-0046-3. ISSN 0022-2844. PMID 15791728. S2CID 27481111. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
  4. ^ Lander, Eric S. (2016). "The Heroes of CRISPR". Cell. 164 (1–2): 18–28. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2015.12.041. ISSN 0092-8674. PMID 26771483.
  5. ^ Albany Medical Center. Gene Editing Pioneers Selected to Receive America’s Most Distinguished Prize in Medicine, August 15, 2017
  6. ^ "PLuS Alliance Prize 2017 winners announced". King’s College London. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
  7. ^ "Francisco Martínez Mojica. Frontiers Of Knowledge Laureate. Biology and Biomedicine. 9th Edition". Frontiers of Knowledge Awards. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
  8. ^ "Martínez Mojica, honoris causa por la UPV". Universitat Politècnica de València (in Spanish). 19 September 2017. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
  9. ^ "El padre de la técnica CRISPR recibió el título de Doctor Honoris Causa de la UNQ". Universidad Nacional de Quilmes (in Spanish). Retrieved 9 October 2020.
  10. ^ "Francisco Martínez Mojica, doctor "honoris causa"". Universitat de València (in Spanish). 11 January 2018. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
  11. ^ "El microbiólogo Francis Mojica recibe el Doctor Honoris Causa en la UIMP - UIMP". Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo (in Spanish). Retrieved 9 October 2020.
  12. ^ "Francisco J. Martínez Mojica, descubridor de las revolucionarias técnicas CRISPR, nuevo doctor Honoris Causa por la UMU". Universidad de Murcia (in European Spanish). 13 November 2019. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
  13. ^ "Multidisciplinary Institute for Environmental - Francisco Juan Martínez Mojica", Universidad de Alicante, retrieved 1 August 2017
  14. ^ Lander, Eric S. (2016), "The Heroes of CRISPR", Cell, 164 (1–2): 18–28, doi:10.1016/j.cell.2015.12.041, ISSN 0092-8674, PMID 26771483

External links

Media related to Francisco Juan Martínez Mojica at Wikimedia Commons

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