Genetics => CRISPR gene editing

Jennifer Doudna is an American biochemist who has pioneered work in CRISPR gene editing, and made other fundamental contributions in biochemistry and genetics.

Born in 1964 in Washington DC, US. When Doudna was seven years old, the family moved to Hawaii, so her father could accept a teaching position in American literature at the University of Hawaii. Growing up in Hilo, Hawaii, Doudna was fascinated by its flora and fauna. Her father enjoyed reading about science and had books on popular science at home. When Doudna was in the sixth grade, he gave her a copy of James Watson’s 1968 book on the discovery of the structure of DNA, The Double Helix, which was a major inspiration.

She earned a PhD in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology in 1989 from the Harvard Medical School. She managed to gain access to the synchrotron at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for her experiments with high-powered x-ray diffraction.

In 2012, Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier were the first to propose that CRISPR-Cas9 (enzymes from bacteria that control microbial immunity) could be used for programmable editing of genomes, which has been called one of the most significant discoveries in the history of biology. They used the immune system of a bacterium, which disables viruses by cutting their DNA up with a type of genetic scissors. By extracting and simplifying the genetic scissors’ molecular components, they made it generally applicable.

Since then, Doudna has been a leading figure in what is referred to as the “CRISPR revolution” for her fundamental work and leadership in developing CRISPR-mediated genome editing.

She received the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, with Emmanuelle Charpentier, “for the development of a method for genome editing.”

She is the Li Ka Shing Chancellor’s Chair Professor in the department of chemistry and the department of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. Doudna has been an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1997.