CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna to speak April 4 in Chicago
Media invited to attend lecture by inaugural recipient of The Kimberly Prize in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics
CHICAGO --- Who better to hear speak about the future of genome editing than the CRISPR pioneer herself?
Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna will deliver a public lecture, “A Decade of CRISPR: What’s ahead for genome editing” at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine Tuesday, April 4, from 4:30-5:30 p.m. (C.T.) in the Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center’s Hughes Auditorium, 303 E. Superior Street, Chicago.
Media are invited to attend the in-person lecture and must RSVP with Kristin Samuelson The event will not be livestreamed and filming the event is not permitted. Photographers will be invited toward the front of the hall during the first five minutes of the lecture to take photographs.
On Sept. 14, 2022, Feinberg and the Simpson Querrey Institute for Epigenetics awarded Doudna the inaugural $250,000 Kimberly Prize in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics. The annual biochemistry and molecular genetics award is the largest biochemistry award offered in the U.S., and it recognizes a scientist whose major molecular discovery has improved human health.
The Kimberly Prize is given by Kimberly Querrey in honor of her late husband, Lou Simpson, a Northwestern trustee, alumnus and benefactor. It is awarded annually to a scientist who has made outstanding biochemical research contributions to the molecular basis of life with a direct demonstrated link of their discovery into the clinic that improves human health.
In addition to presenting the lecture, Doudna also will visit with faculty, fellows and students and attend the award dinner.
Doudna, the Li Ka Shing Chancellor’s Chair and a professor in the departments of chemistry and of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, was selected for her fundamental biochemical studies providing molecular insight into the function of CRISPR/Cas9 systems as tools for genome editing and the application of her work to biology and medicine. Her collaboration with Emmanuelle Charpentier on the groundbreaking development of CRISPR-Cas9 as a genome-engineering technology earned them the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and forever changed the course of human and agricultural genomics research.