Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the inventors of genetic scissors
Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna were awarded for the development of a method for genome editing
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020 has been awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna “for the development of a method for genome editing,” reported the Swedish Academy of Sciences.
They both discovered one of the sharpest tools in gene technology: the CRISPR / Cas9 genetic scissors. With these, researchers can change the DNA of animals, plants and microorganisms with extremely high precision. This technology has had a revolutionary impact on the life sciences, is contributing to new cancer therapies and can make the dream of curing inherited diseases a reality.
The French Charpentier is currently the director of the Max Planck Unit for Pathogen Science in Berlin. And the American Doudna is a professor at Berkeley and a researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
“There is enormous power in this genetic tool with great impact in all of us. It has not only revolutionized basic science, but has also spawned groundbreaking crops and will lead to groundbreaking new medical treatments,” Claes Gustafsson, Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, says in a statement.
As is often the case in science, the discovery of these genetic scissors was unexpected. During Emmanuelle Charpentier’s studies on Streptococcus pyogenes, one of the bacteria that cause the most damage to mankind, she discovered a previously unknown molecule, tracrRNA. Their work showed that ARNtracr is part of the ancient bacterial immune system, CRISPR / Cas, that dismantel viruses by cleaving their DNA.
Source: dpa
