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The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded this Wednesday October 7 to two female geneticists: Emmanuelle Charpentier of France and Jennifer Doudna of the United States, for their research on “molecular scissors” capable of modifying human genes, a “revolutionary” discovery.
The recognition rewards “the development of a gene editing method” that “contributes to the development of new cancer therapies and can make the dream of curing inherited diseases a reality,” the jury in Stockholm stressed.
The winners discovered one of the “sharpest tools in gene technology”: the CRISPR-Cas9 genetic scissors, the Academy noted, when communicating its decision. With them, researchers can change the DNA of animals, plants and microorganisms with extremely high precision.
(Read also: Nobel Prize winners in Medicine discovered Hepatitis C virus).
Charpentier (France, 1968), is a biochemist and microbiologist specialized in viruses and one of the most innovative researchers in the field of gene therapy who in 2002 established her own working group and has been linked to different universities in Austria and Germany.
Doudna (United States, 1964), PhD in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard, is a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, where she also directs the Division of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Structural Biology.
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The CRISPR-Cas9 genetic scissors “They have revolutionized molecular life sciences, provided new opportunities for plant breeding, are contributing to innovative cancer therapies, and may make the dream of curing inherited diseases a reality”added the Swedish academy.
Charpentier and Doudna investigated the immune system of a Streptococcus bacterium and “discovered a molecular tool that can be used to make precise incisions in genetic material, allowing the code of life to be easily changed.”
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The two biochemists were awarded the 2015 Princess of Asturias Award for Scientific and Technical Research for developing “a technology that allows to edit genomes in a simple and precise way, and to manipulate the DNA of plants, animals and humans”, then highlighted the Spanish institution.
The Chemistry award is the last among the scientific awards of the round of the
Nobel, after the Medicine Nobel was revealed on Monday, October 5, and Physics yesterday, Tuesday.
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