Doudna honored at Kavli Prize ceremonies in Norway
Three pioneers of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing lauded in Oslo for their revolutionary discovery
September 4, 2018
The winners of the 2018 Kavli Prize in nanoscience discuss the origins of the gene-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 and its promise for the future.
CRISPR-Cas9 inventor Jennifer Doudna, a UC Berkeley professor of chemistry and of molecular and cell biology, was awarded the 2018 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience today in Norway during a gala ceremony hosted by King Harald V.
She shared the prestigious honor with her colleague Emmanuelle Charpentier, now at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, Germany, and another early CRISPR researcher, Virginijus Šikšnys of Vilnius University in Lithuania.
The awards ceremony was part of a week of events celebrating the seven 2018 Kavli Prize winners, including those who received the prizes for astrophysics and neuroscience. Among other activities, Doudna will deliver a talk about her revolutionary gene-editing discovery on Thursday, Sept. 6, at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.
Doudna and her two colleagues received gold medals and shared a cash prize of $1 million. The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters selected the laureates.
Virginijus Šikšnys, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier accept the 2018 Kavli Prize in nanoscience. (Kavli Prize Foundation photo)