Emmanuelle Charpentier from France is currently working at the Max Planck Institute in Berlin. She had previously conducted research in Vienna, where she was a group leader at the Max F. Perutz Laboratories of MedUni Vienna in 2002. In 2009 she moved to the University of Umeå in Sweden. Jenifer A. Doudna currently works at Berkeley University in the US state of California.
The two scientists have developed a fast and cheap method for genome editing known as CRISPR/Cas9. With this "gene scissors", the DNA string can be cut off at a certain point and thus adapted.
Emmanuelle Charpentier: "You need time to do the work in a proper way"
In this interview recorded shortly after news broke of her Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Emmanuelle Charpentier tells Adam Smith of her surprise at receiving the call from Stockholm, despite considerable speculation that it might be coming her way. She speaks of the "explosion of knowledge and publications" that the CRISPR field has generated, the motivations behind her "brief but intense" collaboration with her co-Laureate Jennifer Doudna, the need for societal involvement in the conversation about the applications of technology and the importance of studying the microbiological world.
Congratulations to both!