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JJennifer Doudna. Princess of Asturias Award

Biography

Jennifer Doudna (Washington D.C., 1964) estudió Química en el Pomona College de Claremont y se doctoró en Química Biológica y Farmacología Molecular en Harvard. Fue investigadora postdoctoral en la Universidad de Colorado y profesora, entre 1994 y 2002, en Yale. Desde 1997 es investigadora del Howard Hughes Medical Institute y, desde 2003, profesora en la Universidad de California en Berkeley, donde también dirige la División de Bioquímica, Biofísica y Biología Estructural y ocupa la Cátedra Li Ka Shing Chancellor de Ciencias Biomédicas.

Jennifer Doudna. Princess of Asturias Award

Awards

Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna have gained international recognition for their joint work on a genome-editing technique based on what are known as CRISPR sequences (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats). The CRISPR-Cas system is an antiviral defence mechanism in archaea and bacteria based on DNA repeat arrays (CRISPR elements) that function in conjunction with Cas nucleases. The teams headed by Charpentier –in Sweden– and Doudna –in the United States– had been independently researching these Cas proteins, associated with CRISPR sequences. In 2012, they published a joint article in Science –2007 Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities–, in which they showed that the Cas 9 enzyme in Streptococcus pyogenes is able to carry out site-specific cleavage of double-stranded DNA with enormous precision using an RNA sequence that contains a combination of repeats and spacers which guide the Cas protein. This genome-editing technology, which has been further developed and improved, has caused a revolution in the field of molecular biology, in which numerous researchers are applying this method to introduce subtle modifications to the genome at specific loci chosen from a wide variety of cells and cell types. In short, it allows gene inactivation or modification with an ease and accuracy never previously achieved, thereby opening up a wide range of possibilities in the fields of biology and medicine. This technique has been applied to human cells in the laboratory and it has been shown in mice that it can be used to correct genetic defects. This method has immediate potential for use as a tool in gene therapy in humans.

For their studies, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna have received, among other distinctions, the Paul Janssen for Award Biomedical Research (USA, 2014), the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences (USA, 2015) and the International Society for Transgenic Technologies Prize, which will be presented to them in March 2016 in Prague (Czech Republic). Time magazine included them in the list of 100 most influential people in the world in 2015.

Jennifer Doudna. Princess of Asturias Award

Minutes of the jury

At its meeting in Oviedo, the Jury for the 2015 Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research, made up of Arturo Álvarez-Buylla Roces, Juan Luis Arsuaga Ferreras, Lina Badimón Maestro, Juan Ignacio Cirac Sasturáin, Mara Dierssen Sotos, Luis Fernández-Vega Sanz, Cristina Garmendia Mendizábal, Álvaro Giménez Cañete, Bernardo Hernández González, Emilio Lora-Tamayo D’Ocón, José Antonio Martínez Álvarez, Amador Menéndez Velázquez, Ginés Morata Pérez, Enrique Moreno González, César Nombela Cano, Marta Sanz-Solé, Manuel Toharia Cortés, chaired by Pedro Miguel Echenique Landiríbar and with Vicente Gotor Santamaría acting as secretary, has unanimously agreed to grant the 2015 Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research jointly to the French researcher Emmanuelle Charpentier and the American researcher Jennifer Doudna for scientific advances that have led to the development of a technology that allows genes to be modified with great precision and simplicity in all types of cells, thus enabling changes that suppose the actual “editing of the genome”.

Both researchers studied how certain bacteria defend themselves against the viruses that infect them, destroying the DNA of these viruses after recognizing some of its specific features. Starting out from these findings, they united their efforts employing a ground-breaking approach that has enabled the development of what is known as the CRISPR-Cas system. This is a method of universal application based on the design of small molecules of RNA that guide the Cas9 enzyme to cleave DNA, thus allowing the modification of genes within cells. The application of this technology has rapidly expanded to many biological systems, resulting in a veritable revolution in Molecular Biology. The methodology allows the removal, activation, inactivation and even correction of any gene, leading to diverse applications in both basic research and in agriculture, livestock breeding and biomedicine. It thus paves the way for developing treatments for genetic diseases that currently lack effective therapies.

Oviedo, 28th May 2015