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A French and an American biochemist received the award for developing a “tool to rewrite the code of life”: the CRISPR / Cas9 gene scissors.
The 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to the two biochemists Emmanuelle Charpentier (France) and Jennifer Doudna (United States). As announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, they received the award “for the development of a method to process the genome”, specifically the CRISPR / Cas9 genetic scissors.
The Nobel Committee described the CRISPR / Cas9 genetic scissors developed by Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna as a “tool to rewrite the code of life.” With it, researchers could change the DNA of animals, plants and microorganisms with the greatest precision. “This technology has had a revolutionary impact in the life sciences, is contributing to new cancer therapies and could make the dream of curing inherited diseases a reality.”
“There is tremendous power in this genetic tool that affects us all. It has not only revolutionized basic science, it has led to groundbreaking crops and will lead to revolutionary new medical treatments,” said Claes Gustafsson, chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.
Don’t have enough career prospects in Vienna?
Charpentier, director of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, worked from 2002 to 2009 at the University of Vienna and at the Max F. Perutz Laboratories (MFPL) of the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna, where she conducted a relevant part of the development work to performed the gene scissors. The researcher once said that she had a “Eureka moment” in Vienna to see how gene scissors work. Due to the lack of career prospects in Vienna, among other things, she transferred to the University of Umea (Sweden) in 2009. In 2012, she and Doudna, who works at the University of California at Berkeley (USA), They published the instructions for the cutting mechanism in the journal “Science.”
Since then, the use of “one of the sharpest tools in genetic engineering,” according to the Nobel Committee, has exploded. It has contributed to many important discoveries in basic research and researchers can develop crops resistant to mold, pests, and drought. In medicine, clinical trials are underway with new cancer therapies and the dream of being able to cure inherited diseases is about to be fulfilled. “This genetic gap has brought life sciences into a new era and is of great benefit to humanity in many ways,” Stockholm said.
Nobel Prize Week
Several winners have already been named this week: On Monday, the committee announced that two Americans and one Briton would join the Nobel Prize in Medicine share – to work on the hepatitis C virus. Interesting: it is a virus that cannot be vaccinated against.
On Tuesday it was announced that the Nobel Prize in Physics This year the research on the theory and reality of black holes is awarded: monsters of gravity, also in the heart of our galaxy. Half goes to the famous mathematician and book author Roger Penrose, the other half to the astrophysicist Reinhard Genzel and the astronomer Andrea Ghez.
On Thursday, Peter Handke’s successor will be the current Nobel Prize in Literature chosen one. Friday follows the – always eagerly awaited – Nobel Peace Prize.
Monday’s conclusion is the award to Economic Sciences. the only award in the series not directly traced to the will of the inventor of dynamite Alfred Nobel. Rather, it has been donated by the Central Bank of Sweden since the late 1960s and is therefore not considered a classic Nobel Prize. Translation of the Swedish name: Swedish Reichsbank Prize in Economics in memory of Alfred Nobel.
(rovi)
