Nobel Chemistry Prize reflects biotech’s colonial extraction of Indigenous knowledge and corporate capture of genetic commons
Original framing: “Sleep, appetite, gene-editing experts contend for Nobel chemistry prize” — Phys.org
The sleep/appetite research builds on Indigenous pharmacopeias like the *Ashwagandha* (used in Ayurveda for insomnia) or *Damiana* (a Mexican herbal appetite stimulant). Gene-editing’s CRISPR tool was inspired by bacterial immune systems first documented by Japanese scientist Yoshizumi Ishino—but its commercialization ignores the *Maori* principle of *kaitiakitanga* (guardianship), which would demand communal consent for genetic modifications to traditional crops like *kiwai* (New Zealand flax). The Nobel’s exclusion of these systems reflects a colonial erasure: as anthropologist Anna Tsing notes, ‘Western science claims universality while practicing exclusion.’
The Nobel Chemistry Prize’s focus on sleep/appetite research and gene-editing reveals a system where colonial extraction of Indigenous knowledge and corporate capture of genetic commons are normalized as ‘innovation.
’ The framing obscures how these fields are built on uncompensated traditions—from *Ashwagandha* to *maize*—while prioritizing patentable ‘discoveries’ over ethical or ecological consequences. Historical patterns, like the *Neem* patent wars or the erasure of Ayurvedic *Marma* points, show that the Nobel’s celebration of ‘breakthroughs’ is complicit in a biotech industrial complex that profits from marginalized knowledge. Solutions require Indigenous-led benefit-sharing, decolonized curricula, and public deliberation on gene-editing—approaches that center *Ubuntu* and *kaitiakitanga* over utilitarian science. The trickster here is the myth of neutral progress, which, as Coyote or Hermes would remind us, always serves the powerful at the expense of the many.