Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020 – Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna win the prestigious award for genome editing

• The 2020 Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna for developing the method for genome editing.
  
• So far, the Nobel Assembly has awarded the Nobel Prize to 183 individuals between 1901 and 2018.
  
• The 2020 Nobel Prize week began on Monday, October 5.
  

The winners of the 2020 Nobel Prize for chemistry are Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna for developing the method for genome editing. Charpentier and Doudna’s genetic scissors has great potential use cases in altering the DNAs of organisms with great precisions – which is huge for experiments in medicine.


“Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudnahave discovered one of gene technology’s sharpest tools: the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors. 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,” Nobel Assembly said.

The award honours the work of scientists and researchers which have practical applications in wide use today. Last year, Akira Yoshino won the 2019 Nobel Prize in chemistry for the development of lithium-ion batteries.

So far, the Nobel Assembly has awarded the Nobel Prize to 183 individuals between 1901 and 2018 for their contributions in the field of chemistry, including the likes of Marie Curie and British biochemist Frederick Sanger.

The prestigious award comes with a gold medal and prize money of 10 million kronor (over $1.1 million), courtesy of a bequest left more than a century ago by the prize's creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. The amount was increased recently to adjust for inflation.

A panel at the Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm announced the recipient.

The 2020 Nobel Prize week began on Monday, October 5. The Nobel Committee awarded the prize for physiology and medicine to Americans Harvey J. Alter and Charles M. Rice and British-born scientist Michael Houghton for discovering the liver-ravaging hepatitis C virus.

On Tuesday, the Nobel prize for Physics went to Roger Penrose of Britain, Reinhard Genzel of Germany, and Andrea Ghez of the United States for their breakthroughs in understanding the mysteries of cosmic black holes.

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