Honour for discoverer of Crispr

Everyone’s talking about Crispr-Cas9, a molecular tool that allows biologists to make changes to organisms’ gene sequences relatively easily. This method has revolutionised genetic engineering. It has been actively applied for several years now, for example in crop cultivation. In the future, scientists hope to use Crispr to cure genetic diseases or AIDS.

Professor Emmanuelle Charpentier, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, is one of the researchers who first described how Crispr can be used in molecular biology. Now the French native is being honoured by ETH Zurich with the Richard R. Ernst Gold Medal. The presentation will take place this Friday during the Richard R. Ernst Lecture at ETH.

“With the Richard R. Ernst Gold Medal, we honour researchers who have made discoveries that go beyond pure science to have a major impact on society as well,” says Beat Meier, Professor at the Laboratory of Physical Chemistry. There is no question that this applies to Crispr-Cas9, which Professor Charpentier helped discover. The implications of this method go beyond biology and biotechnology, as it also holds out hope for healing illnesses that have thus far proved incurable. Meier points out that the rapid spread of Charpentier’s discovery also attests to its significance and applicability: “Whereas other discoveries establish themselves in the scientific community slowly and find application only after several decades, the Crispr-Cas9 method spread to other research labs around the globe in just a few years.”