Nobel Prize 2020 in Chemistry, to the genome editing method

With the announcement of Nobel Prize 2020 in Chemistry, Emmanuelle Charpentier of France and Jennifer A. Doudna of America have become the sixth and the seventh women to be awarded with the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, joining the club of Marie Curie (1911) and Frances Arnold (2018). They are awarded for their efforts in developing the method for genome editing. They will be felicitated with a gold medal and the prize money of 10 million krona i.e nearly $1.1 million.

Issuing statements the Academy said, “Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna have discovered one of gene technology’s sharpest tools: the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors”. It further added, “Using these, researchers can change the DNA of animals, plants, and microorganisms with extremely high precision. This technology has had a revolutionary impact on the life sciences, is contributing to new cancer therapies, and may make the dream of curing inherited diseases come true”.