Jennifer Doudna, faculty scientist in the Molecular Biophysics & Integrated Bioimaging Division, UC Berkeley professor of chemistry and of molecular and cell biology, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, will receive the 2018 National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Award in Chemical Sciences. According to the NAS award announcement, Doudna is honored for her “pioneering discoveries on how RNA can fold to function in complex ways,” and her invention, with Emmanuelle Charpentier, of “the technology for efficient site-specific genome engineering using the CRISPR/Cas9 nucleases for genome editing — a breakthrough technology which has had an immediate and wide impact on all areas of both basic and applied life sciences.”
The NAS Award in Chemical Sciences, established in 1978 and currently sponsored by the Merck Company Foundation, is presented annually to honor innovative research in the chemical sciences that contributes to a better understanding of the natural sciences and to the benefit of humanity. Doudna, along with other award recipients, will be honored in a ceremony on April 29, during the National Academy of Sciences’ 155th annual meeting, where she will be presented with a medal and a $15,000 prize.
