Dear Colleagues,

I am very pleased to share the news that Jennifer Doudna, PhD, Li Ka Shing Chancellor’s Chair in Biomedical and Health Sciences at UC Berkeley, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, senior investigator at the Gladstone Institutes, and adjunct professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology at UCSF, has been named to receive the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Doudna shares the Nobel with her long-time collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier, PhD, Director of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens in Berlin.

Doudna and Charpentier received the prize for their co-development of CRISPR-Cas9, a genome targeting and editing technology that has ushered in a new era of genetics. Their work has transformed the way scientists study genes and their function and has the potential to revolutionize biomedicine.

Inspired by CRISPR’s potential for treating human disease and improving food security through more sustainable agriculture, Doudna spearheaded the creation of the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI), a joint UC Berkeley / UCSF venture she leads as executive director.

Doudna oversees a lab at the Gladstone Institutes at Mission Bay and has been an adjunct professor at UCSF since 2016. She collaborates with physicians and scientists here and at the Gladstone to develop CRISPR-based gene therapies for diseases ranging from cancer to HIV to familial vision and movement disorders.

Read more about the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry:

• NobelPrize.org
• ...