Emmanuelle Charpentier, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020

Emmanuelle Marie Charpentier (born 11 December 1968) is a French professor and researcher in microbiology, genetics and biochemistry. Since 2015, she has been a Director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, Germany. In 2018, she founded an independent research institute, the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens. She is a co-recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Career and research

Charpentier worked as a university teaching assistant at Curie from 1993 to 1995 and as a postdoctoral fellow at the Institut Pasteur from 1995 to 1996. She moved to the US and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Rockefeller University in New York from 1996 to 1997. She worked as an assistant research scientist at the New York University Medical Center from 1997 to 1999 and held the position of Research Associate at the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and at the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine in New York from 1999 to 2002.

After five years in the United States, she returned to Europe and became lab head and a guest professor at the Institute of Microbiology and Genetics, University of Vienna from 2002 to 2004. From 2004 to 2006 she was lab head and an assistant professor at the Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology. In 2006 she became private docent (Microbiology) and received her habilitation at the Centre of Molecular Biology. From 2006 to 2009 she worked as lab head and Associate Professor at the Max F. Perutz Laboratories.

Charpentier moved to Sweden and became lab head and associate professor at the Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (MIMS), at Umeå University. She held these positions from 2009 till 2014, and was promoted to lab head as Visiting Professor in 2014. She moved to Germany to act as department head and W3 Professor at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig and the Hannover Medical School from 2013 until 2015. In 2014 she became an Alexander von Humboldt Professor.

In 2015 Charpentier accepted an offer from the German Max Planck Society to become a scientific member of the society and a director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin. Since 2016, Emmanuelle is a Honorary Professor at Humboldt University in Berlin, and since 2018, she is the Founding and Acting Director of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens. Charpentier retained her position as Visiting Professor at Umeå University until the end of 2017, where a new donation from the Kempe Foundations and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation has given her the opportunity to offer more young researchers positions within research groups of the MIMS Laboratory.

CRISPR/Cas9

Charpentier is best known for her role in deciphering the molecular mechanisms of the bacterial CRISPR/Cas9 immune system and repurposing it into a tool for genome editing. In particular, she uncovered a novel mechanism for the maturation of a non-coding RNA which is pivotal in the function of CRISPR/Cas9. In collaboration with Jennifer Doudna's laboratory, Charpentier's laboratory showed that Cas9 could be used to make cuts in any DNA sequence desired. The method they developed involved the combination of Cas9 with easily created synthetic "guide RNA" molecules. Researchers worldwide have employed this method successfully to edit the DNA sequences of plants, animals, and laboratory cell lines.

Awards

Charpentier has been awarded numerous international prizes, awards and acknowledgements, including the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine, the Gruber Foundation International Prize in Genetics, the Leibniz Prize, Germany's most prestigious research prize, the Japan Prize, and the Kavli Prize in Nanoscience. She has won the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award jointly with Jennifer Doudna and Francisco M. Mojica, whose pioneering work has ignited “the revolution in biology permitted by CRISPR/Cas 9 techniques.” These tools facilitate genome modification with an unprecedented degree of precision, and far more cheaply and straightforwardly than any previous method. Not unlike today's simple, intuitive word processing programs, CRISPR/Cas 9 is able to “edit” the genome by “cutting and pasting” DNA sequences: a technology so efficient and powerful that it has spread like wildfire round the laboratories of the world, explains the jury, “as a tool to understand gene function and treat disease.” Also, in the spring of 2015, Time Magazine designated Charpentier one of the 100 most influential people in the world (together with Jennifer Doudna).

Memberships in science academies include the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and The United States National Academy of Sciences. In addition, Charpentier has been awarded honorary doctorate degrees from the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium), New York University (US), the École Polytechnique Fédéral de Lausanne (Switzerland), Umeå University (Sweden), Western University of London, Ontario (Canada) and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Awards and honours (selection)

• 2009 – Prize of the City of Vienna: Theodor Körner Prize for Science and Culture
• 2011 – The Fernström Prize for young and promising scientists
• 2014 – Elected Member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation
• 2014 – Alexander von Humboldt Professorship
• 2014 – The Göran Gustafsson Prize for Molecular Biology (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences)
• 2014 – European Life Science Awards (2nd Investigator of the Year)
• 2014 – Biotech Meeting Hall of Fame Award Winner for Scientific Achievements
• 2014 – Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research (shared with Jennifer Doudna)
• 2014 – The Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award (shared with Feng Zhang and Jennifer Doudna)
• 2014 – Grand Prix Jean-Pierre Lecocq from the French Academy of Sciences
• 2015 – Time 100: Pioneers (shared with Jennifer Doudna)
• 2015 – Elected Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology
• 2015 – Elected Member of the European Academy of Microbiology
• 2015 – Elected Scientific Member of the Max Planck Society
• 2015 – Elected Member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
• 2015 – The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences (shared with Jennifer Doudna)
• 2015 – International Society for Transgenic Technologies prize (shared with Jennifer Doudna)
• 2015 – Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine
• 2015 – The Ernst Jung Prize in Medicine
• 2015 – The Hansen Family Award
• 2015 – Princess of Asturias Awards (shared with Jennifer Doudna)
• 2015 – Gruber Foundation International Prize in Genetics (shared with Jennifer Doudna)
• 2015 – Umeå University EC Jubilee Award: The MIMS Excellence by Choice Programme
• 2015 – Carus Medal [de], from German National Academy of Science, Leopoldina
• 2015 – Massry Prize
• 2015 – Science Award of Lower Saxony (Wissenschaftspreis Niedersachsen 2015)
• 2015 – World Technology Award for Biotechnology (jointly with Jennifer Doudna)
• 2016 – Elected Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science
• 2016 – Elected Corresponding Member Abroad of the Austrian Academy of Sciences
• 2016 – Elected Member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences
• 2016 – Albert Einstein Foundation Leading 100 Visionaries (shared with Jennifer Doudna)
• 2016 – Doctor Honoris Causa; KU, (Catholic University) Leuven, Belgium
• 2016 – Doctor Honoris Causa; New York University (NYU), USA
• 2016 – ABRF Annual Award for Outstanding Contributions to Biomolecular Technologies
• 2016 – Otto Warburg Medal
• 2016 – Research!Sweden Research Award (Forska!Sverige)
• 2016 – L’Oréal-UNESCO "For Women in Science" Award
• 2016 – Leibniz Prize from the German Research Foundation
• 2016 – Canada Gairdner International Award (shared with Jennifer Doudna and Feng Zhang)
• 2016 – Warren Alpert Foundation Prize
• 2016 – Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize (jointly with Jennifer Doudna)
• 2016 – Tang Prize
• 2016 – HFSP Nakasone Award (jointly with Jennifer Doudna)
• 2016 – Knight (Chevalier) French National Order of the Legion of Honour
• 2016 – Meyenburg Prize
• 2016 – Wilhelm Exner Medal
• 2016 – John Scott Award
• 2017 – Elected Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences
• 2017 – Elected Fellow of the American Association for Cancer Research Academy
• 2017 – Elected Member of the National Academy of Technologies of France
• 2017 – Elected Member of the German National Academy of Science and Engineering Acatech
• 2017 – Elected Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences
• 2017 – Elected member of the French Académie des sciences
• 2017 – Doctor Honoris Causa; Faculty of Medicine, Umeå University, Sweden
• 2017 – Doctor Honoris Causa; Western University, London, Canada
• 2017 – Doctor Honoris Causa; Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
• 2017 – BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (jointly with Jennifer Doudna and Francisco M. Mojica)
• 2017 – Novozymes Prize (Novo Nordisk Fonden)
• 2017 – Deutscher Innovationspreis("Future Thinker")
• 2017 – Japan Prize (jointly with Jennifer Doudna)
• 2017 – International Ellis Island Medal of Honor
• 2017 – Albany Medical Center Prize
• 2017 – Preis Biochemische Analytik (German Society for Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine)
• 2018 – Doctor Honoris Causa; Université catholique de Louvain
• 2018 – Kavli Prize in Nanoscience
• 2018 – Aachen Engineering Award
• 2018 – V de Vida Award by the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC)
• 2018 – Austrian Decoration for Science and Art
• 2018 – American Cancer Society Medal of Honor
• 2018 – Bijvoet Medal of the Bijvoet Center for Biomolecular Research of Utrecht University
• 2018 – Harvey Prize (jointly with Jennifer Doudna and Feng Zhang)
• 2019 – Scheele Award of the Swedish Pharmaceutical Society
• 2020 – Wolf Prize in Medicine (jointly with Jennifer Doudna)
• 2020 – Nobel Prize in Chemistry (jointly with Jennifer Doudna)