The 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry in Chemistry was awarded to French scientist Emmanuel Charpentier and American scientist Jennifer Doudna "for their development of a genome-editing method known as" CRISPR-Cas9 ".

The two researchers, who are joint recipients of the 2020 Chemistry Prize, have discovered one of the most accurate gene technology tools, known as CRISPR / Cas9.

Researchers need to modify the genes in cells if they want to know how life works inside the cell, and this work was time-consuming, difficult and sometimes impossible, but using this technology, researchers were able to change the DNA of animals, plants and microorganisms with very high accuracy.

By using the CRISPR-Cas9 genetic clipper, it is now possible to change the life code over the course of a few weeks. This technology has had a revolutionary impact on life sciences, and it also contributes to finding new cancer treatments, and may make the dream of treating genetic diseases come true soon.

Genetic scissors

In recent years, the gene editing revolution has made scientific headlines all over the world, and the research results of gene editing techniques have dominated the latest scientific developments in recent times.

The revolutionary tool called "CRISPR-Cas9" has become an essential tool used by biologists around the world, because it made changing the DNA inside cells cheap and easy, and it allowed researchers to change the DNA of any living thing very quickly, including humans.

Scientists are likening gene editing to the find and replace function that is used to correct spelling errors in electronic documents written on a computer.

Instead of editing words, gene-editing techniques rewrite DNA, which is the biological code that makes up the instruction manual for all living things. We now have a precise way to correct, replace, or even delete the defective DNA.

By using gene-editing techniques, researchers can disable target genes, correct harmful mutations, and alter the activity of specific genes in plants, animals, and humans.

And gene editing techniques rewrite the genetic material of any living organism, and this technique is considered much more accurate than previous techniques of genetic engineering, and it aims to treat many diseases such as AIDS, viral hepatitis, cancer, and other intractable diseases.

This technology has fundamentally transformed biomedical research in recent years, and researchers hope to use this technology to modify human genes, with the aim of eradicating diseases, providing plants with resilience, and getting rid of pathogens.

French Emmanuel Charpentier and American Jennifer Doudna won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing a genome-editing method known as CRISPR (Nobel Prize website)

Emmanuel Charpentier

Emmanuel Charpentier, this year’s chemistry prize winner, was born in 1968 in Juvisy-sur-Orge, France, and is the Director of the Max Planck Unit for Pathology, in Berlin, Germany.

The scientific discovery of these genetic shears was - as is often the case - unexpected, but it came through Sharpentier's studies on Streptococcus pyogenes, which is one of the bacteria that cause the most harm to humanity, and it has an important role in diseases that afflict The human.

It discovered a previously unknown molecule (tracrRNA), and its work showed that it is part of the ancient immune system of bacteria, which disarm viruses by cleaving their DNA, and Sharpentier published its discovery in 2011.

Jennifer Dodna

As for Jennifer Dodna, she was born in 1964 in Washington, DC, USA, and is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. She is a biochemist with extensive experience and knowledge of RNA.

In 2011, she began a collaboration with Emmanuel Charpentier, and together they succeeded in recreating the gene clipper for bacteria in the test tube, and simplifying the molecular components of the genetic scissors so that they could be easier to use.

They then reprogrammed the genetic scissors, so that the scissors naturally recognize the DNA of the viruses, but Charpentier and Dodna proved that it could be controlled so that they could cut any DNA molecule at a pre-defined location, and so They were able to rewrite the codes of life.

Since Sharpentier and our worm discovered the genetic scissors in 2012, its use has exploded, and this tool has contributed to many important discoveries in basic scientific research, and plant researchers have been able to develop crops that tolerate rot, pests and drought.

Charpentier and Dodna won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry number 112, bringing the number of women who obtained it to 7 scientists out of 186 winners (Nobel Prize website)

Charpentier and Dodna won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry No. 112, bringing the number of women receiving it to 7 scientists out of 186 winners.

"There is tremendous power in this genetic tool, and it affects all of us," says Claes Gustafson, chair of the Nobel Committee. "It has not only revolutionized basic science, it has also led to innovative crops and will lead to pioneering new medical treatments."

Despite the promising potential of gene-editing techniques, there are ethical and technical concerns that they may lead to dangerous or anomalous genomic modifications, and that GMOs cause disturbances or breakdowns in ecosystems.