Berkeley Lab’s Jennifer Doudna Awarded National Medal of Technology and Innovation

Biochemist Jennifer Doudna, a faculty scientist at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), founder of the Innovative Genomics Institute, and a professor at UC Berkeley, has received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the nation's highest honor for technological achievement. The award is bestowed by the president of the United States on America's leading innovators.

President Biden named Doudna one of 11 recipients of the medal in a Jan. 3 announcement . Doudna, who is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, was honored for her work developing the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology.

Doudna's award is the 18th national medal overall, and the third National Medal of Technology and Innovation, Berkeley Lab researchers have earned .

Doudna, a co-winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of a method for genome editing, pioneered the CRISPR-Cas9 genetic engineering technology, which has radically changed genomics research. This genome-editing technology enables scientists to change or remove genes quickly. Labs worldwide have incorporated this new tool, with huge implications across biology, agriculture, and medicine.

"On behalf of the Berkeley Lab community, I extend my warmest congratulations to Jennifer for receiving the National Medal of Technology and Innovation," said Berkeley Lab Director Mike Witherell. "Her groundbreaking research will push the boundaries of science and benefit humanity."

In 2008, Doudna's nascent research on the function of CRISPR arrays in bacterial genomes and the Cas1 protein was funded by a Department of Energy Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program award through her Berkeley Lab affiliation. Established by Congress in 1991, the LDRD program has helped the U.S. remain at the forefront of technology through the innovative, multidisciplinary research of the DOE national labs.

Building on findings from this early work and other investigations, in 2012, Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier's research team detailed the underlying mechanisms of the CRISPR-Cas9 system - a component of the bacterial immune system that defends against invading viruses - and explained how it can be programmed to cut DNA at a target sequence. This seminal work was published in the journal Science in 2012.

Today, Doudna's and Charpentier's Nobel Prize-winning CRISPR-Cas9 technology is the basis of many promising medical technologies, including tools to diagnose and treat disease, and has many applications for the development of improved crops, biofuels, and bioproducts.

Since it was first awarded in 1985, the National Medal of Technology and Innovation has recognized American innovators whose vision, intellect, creativity, and determination have strengthened America's economy and improved our quality of life. The medal was established by Congress in 1980 and is administered by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

###

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is committed to groundbreaking research focused on discovery science and solutions for abundant and reliable energy supplies. The lab's expertise spans materials, chemistry, physics, biology, earth and environmental science, mathematics, and computing. Researchers from around the world rely on the lab's world-class scientific facilities for their own pioneering research. Founded in 1931 on the belief that the biggest problems are best addressed by teams, Berkeley Lab and its scientists have been recognized with 16 Nobel Prizes. Berkeley Lab is a multiprogram national laboratory managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science .

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.