DCAT is honored to host Jennifer Doudna, Ph.D., Biochemist at the University of California, Berkeley, Founder of the Innovative Genomics Institute, Co-inventor of CRISPR technology, and Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (2020). Her groundbreaking development of CRISPR-Cas9 as a genome-engineering technology, with collaborator, Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier, earned the two scientists the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and forever changed the course of human genomics research.
This powerful technology enables scientists to change DNA – the code of life – with a precision only imagined a few years ago. Labs worldwide have re-directed the course of their research programs to incorporate this new tool, creating a CRISPR revolution with huge implications across biology and medicine. The groundbreaking power and versatility of CRISPR-Cas9 have opened up new and wide-ranging possibilities across biology, agriculture, and medicine, including treating thousands of intractable diseases.
Dr. Doudna and her colleagues are now the subject of a new book, The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race, by Walter Isaacson.
Jennifer Doudna, Ph.D., is a biochemist at the University of California, Berkeley, whose groundbreaking development of CRISPR-Cas9 – a genome-engineering technology that allows researchers to edit DNA – with collaborator, Emmanuelle Charpentier, earned the two scientists the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and forever changed the course of human and agricultural genomics research.
Dr. Doudna is also the founder and President of the Innovative Genomics Institute, the Li Ka Shing Chancellor’s Chair in Biomedical and Health Sciences, and a member of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Gladstone Institutes, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
She is a leader in the global public debate on the responsible use of CRISPR and has co-founded and serves on the advisory panel of several companies that use the technology in unique ways. She is the co-author of Crack in Creation, a personal account of her research and the societal and ethical implications of gene editing.
