This is a remarkable accomplishment and going forward it will make a huge difference in people afflicted with illness.

7 October 2020

Heidi Ledford & Ewen Callaway

It’s CRISPR. (click here) Two scientists who pioneered the revolutionary gene-editing technology are the winners of this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

The Nobel Committee’s selection of Emmanuelle Charpentier, now at the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens in Berlin, and Jennifer Doudna, at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, puts to rest years of speculation about who would be recognized for their work developing the CRISPR–Cas9 gene-editing tools. The technology allows precise edits to the genome and has swept through labs worldwide since its inception in the 2010s. It has countless applications: researchers hope to use it to alter human genes to eliminate diseases, create hardier plants, wipe out pathogens and more....