ALAMEDA: Scribe Therapeutics Inc. co-founder Jennifer Doudna, Ph.D., has been awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier, Ph.D., for their discovery of CRISPR, the genome editing technology that has transformed modern science and biomedicine.
The two scientists are the first women to jointly win a Nobel Prize.
Doudna published her initial work on the CRISPR-Cas9 system and its potential for rewriting the DNA of animals, plants and microorganisms in 2012. She has since pioneered its application across multiple therapeutic and diagnostic areas, discovered additional CRISPR enzymes that build upon the potential of her original technology and led the global conversation on its risks, opportunities and ethical use.
“Jennifer is an inspiration and mentor to the entire Scribe team. We are thrilled to congratulate her on this extraordinary and well-deserved recognition,” said Benjamin Oakes, CEO and co-founder of Scribe Therapeutics.
“The development of CRISPR technology has fundamentally changed the way we can address basic scientific questions and build solutions to some of our greatest challenges. It is because of Jennifer’s groundbreaking work and through her continued guidance that we now have the ability to rewrite DNA and ultimately the story of disease.”
Doudna co-founded Scribe to engineer highly advanced CRISPR-based technologies specifically for therapeutic use and establish a new standard of clinical care for the millions of people with genetic conditions.
Scribe recently unveiled the company’s fully integrated platform of gene editing and delivery technologies and announced a research collaboration with Biogen Inc. to engineer therapies for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).
In addition to her role at Scribe, Doudna is the Li Ka Shing Chancellor’s Chair in Biomedical and Health Sciences and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the University of California, Berkeley, and the president and chair of the board of the Innovative Genomics Institute.
She is also a faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institutes and an adjunct professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry, awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, honors researchers who have made outstanding contributions to the field.
Scribe Therapeutics is a molecular engineering company focused on building best-in-class in vivo therapies to permanently treat the underlying cause of disease. Founded by CRISPR inventors and leading molecular engineers Benjamin Oakes, Brett Staahl, David Savage, and Jennifer Doudna, Scribe is overcoming the limitations of current genome editing technologies by developing custom engineered enzymes and delivery modalities as part of a proprietary, evergreen platform for CRISPR-based genetic medicine. The company is backed by leading individual and institutional investors including Andreessen Horowitz.
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