Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier, Jennifer A. Doudna for developing genome-editing method

The 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna “for the development of a method for genome editing.”

Doudna is the Director of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens in Berlin. She was born in 1964 in Washington, D.C, USA. Doudna completed her Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School, and is currently the Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, USA and Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Charpentier was born in 1968 in Juvisy-sur-Orge, France. She completed her Ph.D. from Institut Pasteur in Paris.


Charpentier published her discovery in 2011. She went on to collaborate with Doudna, a biochemist with vast knowledge of RNA, in the same year.

In a release, the Swedish Academy said, "Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna have discovered one of gene technology’s sharpest tools: the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors. Using 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 may make the dream of curing inherited diseases come true."