April 19, 2023

Ashlyn Tsang, Maya Puterman, Noa Essner

10th Grade

Jennifer Doudna is an American biochemist born in 1964 who co-discovered CRISPR, an invaluable tool for saving lives through genetic modification. Doudna was originally born in Washington, D.C., but she grew up in Hawaii where her love of science stemmed from exploring rainforests on her native island, Hilo. Her father, who taught at the University of Hawaii, lent her the very book that would spark her insatiable curiosity for genetics: The Double Helix, by James Watson. A few years later, she studied biochemistry at California’s Pomona College, then went to Harvard University for graduate school, where alongside Jack Szostak she researched ribonucleic acids (RNA) as well as DNA (deoxyribonucleic acids). 

Working in Szostak’s lab, she successfully developed a form of self-replicating RNA, which, according to Yale’s Gruber Foundation, “demonstrated that RNA not only stores genetic information but also catalyzes chemical reactions that help duplicate the information — a key attribute of life.” She later strove to expand on this work and began to utilize X-ray crystallography to visualize DNA and RNA models and research certain structures. In her study of viral disease, she came across a strange bacteria that had the trait of being able to replicate itself but did so unusually and irregularly. This repeating sequence, known as “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR),” enabled the bacteria to remember previous infection, and then train the body how to fight it if it received that same infection once again, something truly remarkable. 

Doudna, amazed by this defense system, devoted several years to researching where else this mechanism was prevalent in the body as well as how it worked, and simultaneously published research papers listing her findings. Her work researching CRISPR systems intersected with that of French microbiologist Emanuelle Charpentier, whom Doudna met at a scientific conference in 2011. Although Charpentier and Doudna each focused on different aspects of RNA, they nonetheless yielded great success in terms of discoveries. The two of them found that parts of CRISPR RNA on bacteria, when combined with the Cas9 enzyme, could cut invading and viral DNA in half. This method was groundbreaking in that it could serve as a tool to treat viruses and modify someone’s DNA, a method which has been adapted to prevent many diseases such as HIV, sickle cell anemia, and Down Syndrome. 

Doudna was an exceptional biochemist whose fervent devotion to her field greatly advanced scientific research and developments; however, her collaboration with fellow female scientist Charpentier highlights the incredible results of when women support each other in STEM fields, as the CRISPR genetic-modification method continues to save the lives and improve the quality of life of countless individuals each year.