2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

The 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna. The prize was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on 7 October 2020.

The citation

The citation reads: "for the development of a method for genome editing". They share the prize equally.

The laureates

Emmanuelle Charpentier was born in 1968 in Juvisy-sur-Orge, France, and is affiliated with the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens, Berlin. Jennifer A. Doudna was born in 1964 in Washington, D.C., the United States, and is affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley.

Why it matters

The two scientists developed the CRISPR-Cas9 "genetic scissors", which can change DNA with great precision. It is the first time two women have shared a science prize.

The prize

The prize is worth 10 million Swedish kronor, divided between the laureates. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895.