This is the CPM Dr Stanley Ho Memorial Lecture

Jennifer Doudna is an American biochemist. She is Li Ka Shing Chancellor Chair Professor in the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. Doudna has been an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1997, and since 2018 she has held the position of senior investigator at the Gladstone Institutes, as well as that of professor at the University of California, San Francisco.

Professor Doudna has been a leading figure in what is referred to as the“CRISPR revolution” for her fundamental work and leadership in developing CRISPR-mediated genome editing. In 2012, Professor Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier were the first to propose that CRISPR-Cas9 could be used for programmable editing of genomes, which is now considered one of the most significant discoveries in the history of biology. They were awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their pioneering work.