Biology & Philosophy - Target Article: Eugene Koonin

Biology and Philosophy is proud to present its first target article collection. These collections discuss an article by a prominent researcher on a topic that the journal wants to highlight to the community.

The journal is most grateful to Eugene Koonin for having accepted to write the first target paper for Biology & Philosophy on such a major topic in current biology as CRISPR-Cas (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats).Eugene Koonin is the ideal person for presenting CRISPR-Cas to a philosophical audience. Koonin is a prominent biologist and an expert in evolutionary and computational biology. His research spans an expansive range of subjects, from genome sequencing to comparative genomics, protein classification, horizontal gene transfer (and related issues around the “tree of life”), identification of giant viruses, and virus classification, among many other areas.

The target article collection consists of the following articles:

Philosophy of CRISPR-Cas: Introduction to Eugene Koonin’s target paper and commentaries, Thomas Pradeu (this opens in a new tab)

CRISPR: a new principle of genome engineering linked to conceptual shifts in evolutionary biology, Eugene Koonin (this opens in a new tab)

Mutationism, not Lamarckism, captures the novelty of CRISPR-Cas, Jeremy Wideman, Andrew Inkpen, Ford Doolittle, and Rosemary Redfield (this opens in a new tab)

Striving for clarity about the ''Lamarckian'' nature of CRISPR-Cas systems, Sam Woolley, Emily C. Parke, David Kelley, Anthony M. Poole, and Austen Ganley (this opens in a new tab)

A Use / Disuse Paradigm for CRISPR-Cas Systems, Sophie Veigl (this opens in a new tab)

Lamarckian realities: the CRISPR-Cas system and beyond, Eva Jablonka (this opens in a new tab)

CRISPR-Cas Changing Biology?, Janella Baxter (this opens in a new tab)

CRISPR-Cas immunity: Beyond nonself and defence, Thomas Pradeu and Jean-François Moreau (this opens in a new tab)

Response to commentaries: Lamarckian or not, CRISPR-Cas is an elaborate engine of directed evolution, Eugene Koonin (this opens in a new tab)