HEALTH A pair of female scientists are the first women to be jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

A pair of female scientists are the first women to be jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

The 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna for the development of a method for genome editing: the CRISPRCas9 genetic scissors. Using this tool, researchers can change the DNA of animals, plants and micro-organisms with extremely high precision. The discovery has already contributed to innovative cancer therapies and may make the dream of curing inherited diseases a reality.

Charpentier, a French microbiologist, and Doudna, an American biochemist, are the first women to jointly win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry since it was launched in 1913, and the sixth and seventh women to win the chemistry prize.

Doudna and Charpentier co-authored their first paper on CRISPR-Cas9 in 2012. Since then, the technology has been used in a variety of ways. In 2015, scientists from Harvard University modified pig embryos in the first step to creating organs suitable for human transplant. Also in 2015, US scientists genetically modified mosquitoes using CRISPRCas9 to prevent them carrying the malaria parasite.

Most of the proposed applications involve editing the genomes of somatic (non-reproductive) cells, but there has been much interest in the potential to edit germline (reproductive) cells. In April 2015, a Chinese group reported the first application of CRISPR-Cas9 to non-viable human embryos, triggering an ethical debate worldwide about use of the technology due to its possible effects on future generations, as well as safety concerns. In 2016, UK scientists were authorised to genetically modify human embryos using CRISPR-Cas9, followed by US scientists in 2017.

In November 2018, a Chinese researcher at the Southern University of Science and Technology, He Jiankui, released a video on YouTube announcing that he and his colleagues had “created” the world’s first genetically altered babies, twin girls Lulu and Nana. The babies were made using sperm from HIV-positive fathers that had been genetically modified to make the cells less susceptible to HIV. He was later jailed after being found guilty of “illegal medical practices”.

For now, research is focused on modifying adult cells taken from patients in order to treat disease. Earlier this year, Oregon Health and Science University recorded the first patient to receive gene editing therapy with CRISPR directly administered into the body. The gene therapy is injected into the eye to enable vision in people born with the blindness-causing mutation, Leber’s Congenital Amaurosis. “Being able to edit genes inside the human body is incredibly profound,” says Dr Mark Pennesi, who led the trial at the OHSU School of Medicine. “Beyond potentially offering treatment for a previously untreatable form of blindness, in vivo gene editing could also enable treatments for a much wider range of diseases.”