Emmanuella Charpentier and Jennifer A.Douna have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, for their work on Genome Editing. This marks the first time a science Nobel would be awarded to two women.
The two female scientists developed the Crispr tool which can be used to alter DNA of animals, plants and microorganisms with high precision in 2012. The Crispr-Cas9, a method for genome editing.
Dr Charpentier is the Director of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens in Berlin, while Dr. Douna is a professor at the University of California, Berkerly, USA.
‘This year’s prize is about rewriting the code of life’ Goran K. Hansson, the Secretary-General of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. In a male-dominated science research landscape. They are the third and fourth women out of 50 recipients to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in the 21st Century.
Dr Charpientier told the media that she is happy to be one of the few women who have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. She hoped that the award of the prize will inspire women to ‘follow the path of science’. She also hoped that the win would ‘provide areally strong message for young girls’.
The CrisprCas9 method has been used in many scientific experiments and will be used to modifying crops to help them become resistant to diseases. It may also be helping in alleviating or curing conditions like sickle cell and hereditary blindness.
Angela Zhou, an information scientist at the American Chemical Society described the Crispr the method as fast, efficient, economic, and reliable ‘in solving problems in every field in biology’.
Femi Morgan
Photo Credits: Miguel Riopa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images, and Dailysabah