Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded for CRISPR genome editing to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna

CNN — The Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna for the development of a method for genome editing. Charpentier said at a Wednesday news conference that she hoped the win sent a “positive message to the young girls who would like to follow the path of science, and to show them that women in science can also have an impact through the research that they are performing.” Potential minefield CRISPR gene-editing technology has often been mentioned as a candidate for the chemistry prize, but David Pendlebury, a senior citation analyst at Clarivate Analytics, told CNN before the announcement that it was a potential minefield for a Nobel Committee that likes to play it safe. Speaking on the awarding of Wednesday’s Nobel Prize, Dr. John Parrington, a lecturer in Cellular & Molecular Pharmacology at the University of Oxford, said: “I think this is very well deserved indeed.” Parrington told the UK’s Science Media Centre that while a number of other scientists have made important contributions to this discovery, there was “no doubt” that Doudna and Charpentier played a key role in understanding the CRISPR/Cas mechanism, and how it might be developed as a genome editing tool. He added that CRISPR/Cas genome editing “has immense potential to transform our lives for the better but also raises many ethical and socio-political questions.” Doudna and Charpentier are the first two women to jointly win the chemistry prize. “I am also hugely pleased to see that the Nobel committee has chosen to honor two leading women in active research – their teamwork is an example of how scientific breakthroughs are based on a truly global community of researchers and they can become role models for aspiring scientists of all genders.” Doudna was born in Washington, DC and is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley Charpentier was born in Juvisy-sur-Orge, France and is director of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens, Berlin, Germany.