Jennifer Doudna, Ph.D.

Doudna is a professor of molecular and cell biology and of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In 2012, she and colleagues presented the breakthrough study introducing CRISPR-Cas9 to the world. Doudna is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Inventors and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is also a foreign member of the Royal Society and has received many other honors including the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the Heineken Prize, the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award and the Japan Prize. She is the co-author with Sam Sternberg of “A Crack in Creation,” a personal account of her research and the societal and ethical implications of gene editing.