Nobel Prize: UC Berkeley’s gene-editing tool CRISPR wins chemistry prize

UC Berkeley’s Jennifer A. Doudna and French scientist Emmanuelle Charpentier have won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing the revolutionary method of genome editing known as CRISPR.

The gene-editing tool gives scientists near godlike power: moving genes from one living creature to another. In a mere eight years, it has transformed research into plant and animal breeding, treatment for hereditary disease and strategies for combating infectious disease and cancer.

The recipients were announced Wednesday in Stockholm by Goran Hansson, Secretary General of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

It was UC Berkeley’s second Nobel Prize in as many days, after the committee honored professor emeritus Reinhard Genzel and UCLA physics and astronomy professor Andrea Ghez for their breakthroughs in understanding the mysteries of cosmic black holes.

“This great honor recognizes the history of CRISPR and the collaborative story of harnessing it into a profoundly powerful engineering technology that gives new hope and possibility to our society,” Doudna said Wednesday. “What started as a curiosity‐driven, fundamental discovery project has now become the breakthrough strategy used by countless researchers working to help improve the human condition.”

CRISPR-Cas9 isn’t the first gene-editing method. But it is much faster, cheaper, easier and more accurate than earlier versions.

“It’s like the Model T — not the first car but the one that changed the world,”  Hank Greely, director of the Center for Law and the Biosciences at Stanford Law School, told this news organization in an article about pioneering research in the Bay Area.

The ability to alter gene sequences was first proven at Stanford in the 1970s, but genome editing has been slow to reach humans.

Doudna’s discovery in 2012 galvanized the medical community — and now, CRIPSR is moving out of test tubes and toward testing in humans, with clinical trials for various diseases such as sickle cell anemia.

Doudna and Charpentier, then at Umea University in Sweden, demonstrated a way to use CRISPR to slice up any DNA sequence they choose — then add or subtract pieces. Its profound implications present science with boundless opportunities but also once-unthinkable ethical quandaries.

Those sci-fi fears arose in late 2018 when a Chinese researcher announced he had altered the DNA of at least two embryos to create the world’s first genetically edited babies.

The Chinese physicist He Jiankui conducted his post-doctoral research at Stanford  under one of the university’s top bioengineers.

The scandal rocked the world of genetics and has weighed heavily on the future of a technology that could save the life of an individual patient but also change the genetic code of future generations, redirecting evolution in new, permanent and unimaginable ways.

“I encourage continued support of fundamental science as well as public discourse about the ethical uses and responsible regulation of CRISPR technology,” said Doudna, who is the chair in Biomedical and Health Sciences and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at UC Berkeley.

She also serves as president and chair of the board of the Innovative Genomics Institute. Wednesday’s honor from the Nobel committee was not entirely unexpected, Doudna’s work has been celebrated in the scientific community for years.

The prestigious award comes with a gold medal and prize money of 10 million krona (more than $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.

On Monday, 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. Genzel and Ghez shared half of Tuesday’s prize for physics with Roger Penrose of Britain.

The other prizes are for outstanding work in the fields of literature, peace and economics.

Staff writer Lisa M. Krieger and the Associated Press contributed to this report. Check back for more on this developing story.