ABRF Annual Award for Outstanding Contributions to Biomolecular Technologies
The ABRF-2016 Awardees for Outstanding Contributions to Biomolecular Technologies are Drs. Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, for the development of CRISPR/Cas9 Genome Editing Technologies.
CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing system is one of the best examples of biomedical technologies that have made an enormous impact in a very short period of time. Though the CRISPR system was known to the scientific community as a bacterial immune system for nearly two decades, the tremendous potential of CRISPR system for genome editing was uncovered by the work of Drs. Charpentier and Doudna when they re-purposed it for genome editing in early 2013.
Briefly, the CRISPR genome editing technology constitutes two components; a short RNA molecule called the guide RNA designed to bind at a specific sequence, that guides the Cas9 nuclease, the second component, to recognize and cleave the genomic DNA near the guide RNA binding site. Such double strand breaks either get repaired by cellular DNA repair mechanism, which is mostly imprecise leading to disruption of the gene, or a new piece of DNA can be inserted at the cut site to enable desired genetic modification.
In a similar way that the discovery of restriction endonucleases turned a bacterial defense mechanism into a DNA cloning tool that has revolutionized molecular biology, the CRISPR/Cas9 system has now made a similar impact in many fields of biomedical research and it has dramatically changed the way molecular biology and gene expression-modulation experiments are designed and performed in thousands of labs world-wide.
The award will be presented at the annual ABRF meeting on Tuesday, February 23, 2016 at 2:00pm.
Emmanuelle Charpentier
Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology
Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine (MIMS), Umeå Centre for Microbial Research (UCMR)
Department of Molecular Biology, Umeå University
Emmanuelle Charpentier studied biochemistry, microbiology and genetics at the University Pierre and Marie Curie, Paris, France and obtained her PhD in Microbiology for her research performed at the Pasteur Institute. She then continued her work in the United States, at The Rockefeller University, New York University Langone Medical Center and the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine (all in New York, NY) and at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital (in Memphis, TN). E. Charpentier returned to Europe to establish her own research group at the Max F. Perutz Laboratories of the University of Vienna in Austria where she habilitated in the field of Microbiology. She was then appointed Associate Professor and then Guest Professor at the Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (MIMS, part of Nordic European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) Partnership for Molecular Medicine) at Umeå University in Sweden where she habilitated in the field of Medical Microbiology. Since 2013, she has also been the Head of the Department of Regulation in Infection Biology at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Braunschweig, and Professor at the Medical School of Hannover in Germany. The same year, she was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship, which she has held since 2014. In 2015, E. Charpentier was appointed Scientific Member of the Max Planck Society in Germany and Director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin.
With her recent groundbreaking findings in the field of RNA-mediated regulation based on the CRISPR-Cas9 system, E. Charpentier has laid the foundation for the development of a novel, highly versatile and specific genome editing technology that is revolutionizing life sciences research and could open up whole new opportunities in biomedical gene therapies. The resulting field of research is now developing at dazzling speed, with exciting new aspects emerging almost weekly. E. Charpentier has been awarded prestigious honors including the Umeå University EC Jubilee Award in 2015, the 2015 Gruber Prize in Genetics, the 2015 Hansen Family Award, the 2015 Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research, the 11th International Society for Transgenic Technologies Prize, Elected Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in 2015, the 2015 Louis Jeantet Prize for Medicine, the 2015 Ernst Jung Prize for Medicine, the 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the 2014 Grand Prix Jean-Pierre LeCocq, the 2014 Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine, the 2014 Dr Paul Janssen Award, Elected EMBO Member in 2014, the 2014 Göran Gustafsson Prize, an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship in 2013 and the Eric K. Fernström Prize in 2011. The impact of her scientific accomplishments has also been recognized in the broader community of world affairs. E. Charpentier was selected as one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2015, one of Foreign Policy’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers in 2014, one of Vanity Fair’s 50 most influential French people worldwide in 2014. E. Charpentier is co-inventor and owner of seminal intellectual property comprising the CRISPR-Cas9 technology, and co-founder of CRISPR Therapeutics and ERS Genomics, created to facilitate the development and application of CRISPR-Cas9 genome engineering technology for biotechnological and biomedical purposes.
Jennifer Doudna
University of California, Berkeley
Jennifer Doudna is the Li Ka Shing Chancellor’s Chair in Biomedical and Health Sciences and she is Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology and Professor of Chemistry at UC Berkeley and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. Doudna has devoted her scientific career to revealing the secret life of RNA. Using the approaches of structural biology and biochemistry, Doudna’s work deciphering the molecular structure of RNA enzymes and other functional RNAs has shown how these seemingly simple molecules carry out complex functions and work together with proteins to control the information content of a cell.
Dr. Doudna grew up amidst the natural wonders of Hawaii, where she experienced volcanic eruptions, explored remote beaches and honed her body-surfing skills while living in the small town of Hilo on the Big Island. She earned a B.A. in Biochemistry at Pomona College in 1985, where she worked with chemists Sharon Panasenko and Fred Grieman, and enjoyed the mentorship of many other great professors. She then worked with Jack Szostak (recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine) at Harvard, completing her Ph.D. in 1989 on the development of a self-replicating RNA based on the activity of a group I self-splicing intron. This work showed how RNA could function as both a template and a catalyst for generating copies of itself, a key property of life. As a Lucille Markey postdoctoral scholar with Tom Cech (recipient of the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry) at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Doudna began crystallizing catalytic RNA molecules with a goal of determining their three-dimensional structures and hence unlocking the key to their biochemical activities. She continued this work as a faculty member at Yale University, where she became Assistant Professor in 1994 in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry. In two landmark studies early in her career, Doudna and colleagues solved the crystal structures of two large RNAs – the P4-P6 domain of the Tetrahymena thermophila group I intron ribozyme and the hepatitis delta virus ribozyme. By determining their molecular structures, her work advanced the understanding of RNA’s ability to function as a catalyst in biological systems. After being promoted through the ranks to Henry Ford II Professor at Yale, Doudna moved in 2002 to the University of California at Berkeley, where her lab began studying the function of small RNAs that control a cell’s genetic information. This led to her work on bacterial immune systems that employ RNA molecules derived from viruses to target and destroy foreign DNA. In collaboration with the lab of Emmanuelle Charpentier, Doudna and postdoctoral associate Martin Jinek determined the function of an RNA-guided enzyme in the bacterial immune pathway, Cas9, whose ability to cut double-stranded DNA can be programmed by changing its guide RNA sequence. This groundbreaking research has yielded the Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) technology, which uses the RNA-guided Cas9 protein like genetic “scissors” to precisely cut DNA so that mutations in cells and tissues can be repaired in ways previously impossible. Doudna and her colleagues recognized that RNA-guided precision DNA cleavage could be harnessed as a molecular tool for precision genome engineering in all cells, a discovery that has triggered a revolution in modern biology.
Doudna’s work has been honored by numerous awards. She received the National Academy of Sciences Award for Initiatives in Research in 1999, and the Alan T. Waterman Award from the National Science Foundation in 2000. In 2001 she received the Eli Lilley Award in Biological Chemistry from the American Chemical Society, and in 2002 she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, followed by her 2003 election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2008 election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2010 election to the National Academy of Medicine, 2014 election to the National Academy of Inventors and 2015 election as a Fellow of the American Society of Microbiology. In 2013 she was the recipient of the Mildred Cohn Award from ASBMB and the Hans Neurath Award from the Protein Society. In 2014 she received the Lurie Prize from the Foundation for the NIH, the Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine and the Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research. Most recently she has been awarded the 2015 L’Oreal-UNESCO Prize for Women in Science; the 2015 Massry Prize; the 2015 Gruber Prize in Genetics; the 2015 Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research; the 2015 International Society for Transgenic Technologies Prize; and the 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences. She has also been recognized as one of Foreign Policy’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers and one of the Time 100, Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world. Dr. Doudna is a leader in the global discussion of bioethical and societal implications of genome editing. She is also co-founder of Caribou Biosciences, Editas Medicine and Intellia Therapeutics, three biotechnology companies that are employing genome editing to advance human health and agriculture.
