In news we love to see, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry has this week been awarded to two trailblazing women in STEM. On Wednesday, October 7, Emmanuelle Charpentier, Ph.D., and Jennifer A. Doudna, Ph.D., were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry—marking the first time the science accolade has done so.
The scientists were awarded the Nobel for their genome editing research on Crispr-Cas9, a tool “which can alter the DNA of animals, plants and microorganisms with high precision,” according to the New York Times.
Charpentier, a French microbiologist, and Doudna, an American biochemist, met at a café in Puerto Rico in 2011 while attending a conference, according to the Novel committee, and began their history-making work together in 2012.
According to the NYT, since conducting their research, the Crispr tool has been used for everything from developing cures for genetic diseases to modifying crops.
“This year’s prize is about rewriting the code of life,” Goran K. Hansson, the secretary-general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said during the announcement.
The pair—the sixth and seventh to receive this particular prize—were not the only women who were honoured by the Nobel Foundation this year. Andrea Ghez, Ph.D., became the fourth woman to take home the Nobel Prize in Physics for her decades of work studying and discovering black holes.
Of the incredibly inspiring win, Charpentier says she hopes her win will inspire young women “to follow the path of science.”
Congratulations!
