Jennifer Doudna – born on this day – shared the 2020 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Emmanuelle Charpentier for developing a genetic engineering technique called CRISPR-Cas9. Based on a naturally occurring defence system used by bacteria to expunge foreign DNA from their genome, CRISPR-Cas9 has revolutionised both biomedical and plant research readily revealing the impact of editing genes in living cells and model organisms, and is being applied in human genome editing to correct disease-causing gene faults and deliver gene therapies
Written by
BPoD stands for Biomedical Picture of the Day. Managed by the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences until Jul 2023, it is now run independently by a dedicated team of scientists and writers. The website aims to engage everyone, young and old, in the wonders of biology, and its influence on medicine. The ever-growing archive of more than 4000 research images documents over a decade of progress. Explore the collection and see what you discover. Images are kindly provided for inclusion on this website through the generosity of scientists across the globe.
BPoD is also available in Catalan at www.bpod.cat with translations by the University of Valencia.