Breakthroughs beyond machinery — one stands: the piggyBac transposon

1989–2006 AND AFTER · NOTRE DAME LABORATORY, GRANGER RESIDENCE, GRADED AS SUCH

Malcolm J. Fraser Jr. is the one resident of this ground whose work changed a field. Fraser, a Notre Dame biologist living in Granger, discovered the piggyBac transposon at Notre Dame in 1989 — a mobile genetic element, first characterised with Cary and co-workers, that moves DNA into insect genomes with unusual precision. The patent family assigned jointly to the University of Notre Dame, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the University of Florida runs: U.S. Patent 6,218,185, granted 17 April 2001, "Piggybac transposon-based genetic transformation system for insects," inventors Paul D. Shirk of Gainesville, Malcolm J. Fraser Jr. of Granger, Indiana, Tamra Elick of Warsaw and Omaththage Perera of Gainesville; U.S. Patent 6,551,825, granted 22 April 2003, of the same title; U.S. Patent 6,962,810, granted 8 November 2005, claiming methods and compositions for transposition using the minimal segments of piggyBac required for full function; and U.S. Patent 7,105,343, granted 12 September 2006, of the same minimal-segment line. What the system actually did: it became a universal transgenesis tool — a standard way of putting genes into insects, taken up from malaria and dengue vector work (Fraser's programme drew Gates Grand Challenge support for dengue control) to, in March 2009, a Canadian and Scottish team's use of piggyBac to coax mouse and human skin cells back to an embryonic-like state, Notre Dame's own news office reporting the system as "discovered and patented by Fraser." His professional record carries seven patents as co-author and fellowship of the Entomological Society of America. The tie is graded exactly: the work was done in Notre Dame's Laboratory of Molecular Virology, across the line in the Notre Dame designated place; the inventor's residence on every face is Granger. This ground holds the man, not the bench — and the man is breakthrough enough.

Behind Fraser, the beyond-machinery shelf holds at application strength the combustion-synthesis work of Alexander S. Mukasyan of Granger — self-sustaining exothermic reactions that make advanced ceramics, silicon-carbide powders and, in the application published 25 December 2014, graphene at kilogram scale with under one percent oxygen — a Notre Dame research professor's record of three books and more than 180 publications, printed here as published applications because no granted number was verified for him in this section. The biosensor line of the first article (Edelbrock, Pugia) is the third shelf: field-changing inside diagnostics, incremental in form. And the register's floor tests answer as neighbours, not residents: the Breathalyzer is Bloomington and Indianapolis (preceding article), the Farnsworth fusor line is Fort Wayne's television chapter and Princeton's, and the Bowmar Brain is Indianapolis's — each searched for a Granger thread, none found. One correction this evidence makes necessary is flagged here rather than smoothed over: the People leg's fame band prints that no scientist born or seated in the designated place was found. The patent faces now add residence evidence of a different kind — working scientists of Notre Dame and industry who lived in Granger while they invented. That does not seat a laboratory here and does not overturn the banked sentence on its own terms, but the two records must be read together, and the assembly is asked to note the tension rather than let either stand alone.

Sources:

1. Patent faces and family record: U.S. 6,218,185 (17 Apr 2001), 6,551,825 (22 Apr 2003), 6,962,810 B2 (8 Nov 2005), 7,105,343 (12 Sep 2006) — Fraser Jr., Granger, IN; assignees University of Notre Dame, USDA, University of Florida; family as also scheduled in the Notre Dame–Kraig Biocraft intellectual-property agreement filed with the SEC.
2. Notre Dame News, 10 March 2009 (piggyBac "discovered and patented by Fraser," used to reprogramme skin cells); Notre Dame Research biography of Alexander S. Mukasyan (joined 1997; Research Professor 2000; three books, 180+ publications and patent letters).
3. Published application US 20140377160 (25 Dec 2014), combustion synthesis of graphene — Mukasyan, Granger, IN; printed as an application.
4. Notable People, fame band, as banked — the "no scientist" sentence flagged in the text above, not edited by this section.