Vidya G R
It was October 7th, 2020. Dr. Jennifer Doudna was sound asleep in a hotel room in Palo Alto when her phone rang at 2:53 am. The persistent buzz of the phone woke her up. The call was from a reporter she knew. The reporter from Nature Magazine said, “I hate to bother you so early, but I wanted your comment on the Nobel.” Dr. Doudna, who was in Palo Alto to attend a meeting, replied, “Gosh! I have not even had time to look at anything yet.” The reporter responded, “Oh my God, you haven’t heard?” Dr. Doudna asked, “Who won?’ ; She said, “You and Emmanuelle!”
Emmanuelle Charpentier, director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Germany, and Jennifer Doudna, professor of biochemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, US, became the first two women in history to share a Nobel Prize without a male co-partner. The prize was a breakthrough not only for women but also for the world of science.
Soon after the prize announcement by the Nobel Committee, UC Berkeley held a press conference for Dr. Doudna. Naturally, most of the questions focused on how the award represented a quantum leap for women in science. “I’m proud of my gender,” Doudna said with a big laugh. “It’s great, especially for younger women. For many young girls there is a feeling that, whatever they do, their work may not be as considered as it might be if they were a man. I would like to see that change and this is a step in the right direction”. As she spoke, Emmanuelle Charpentier was holding her own press conference. A usually unemotive Charpentier expressed in an emotional tone that she was told many times that this day would come. A day when the science of genome editing and the CRISPR technology that she and Doudna discovered would etch their names forever on the Nobel pages.

The 2020 Chemistry Nobel prize was not a total surprise. The science of genetic scissors or CRISPR had enjoyed a lot of eyeballs since its discovery. In 2015 the discovery was awarded the celebrated Breakthrough prize. There was an anticipation that this science would someday win the Nobel race. But to everyone’s surprise, just eight years later, the discovery was being recognized. This was historic.
Along with the swiftness of the recognition, it seemed to prelude the advent of a new era. The secretary- general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences proclaimed, “This year’s prize is about rewriting the code of life, these genetic scissors have taken the life sciences into a new epoch.”
The science of CRISPR is path-breaking. But what the heck is CRISPR anyway? A short explanation goes something like this: It is a way to exploit a quirk in the bacterial immune system to edit genes in almost any organism. Just like in a document, if we find we’ve misspelled a word, we can use the search function to highlight the word, correct it, or delete it. Similarly, within our DNA, that function has been taken on by CRISPR. It is a technology for changing the sequence of DNA in cells in a precise fashion to correct mutations that might otherwise cause disease.

It is simpler, cheaper, efficient, and more precise than the previous gene-editing techniques. Gene editing property of CRISPR finds various applications like diagnostics and therapeutics in cancer, neurodegenerative disorders, genetic diseases, sickle cell anemia, blindness, thalassemia, cystic fibrosis, hereditary tyrosinemia type I, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, mitochondrial disorders), cancer, Huntington’s disease and viral infections (like HIV, COVID, etc.) along with the prospects concerning them. It is revolutionizing everything from medicine to agriculture.
This scientific breakthrough originates from the laboratories of two women scientists. It is noteworthy that the women who were told “women don’t do science” wrote a chapter in the scientific pages that has altered the realm of life sciences forever. They did science and how.
History is full of unsung female scientists. For a lot of the history of modern science, there was a deliberate exclusion of women. Science was said to be a man’s field. Then entered Marie Curie embodying science, excellence, determination, and perseverance. Being the first female laureate and the only person to date to have won a Nobel in two different science categories, she has inspired generations and generations of women. “Who’s to say science is a man’s field.” The 1963 Physics Laureate Maria Goeppert Mayer, the second woman to win a Nobel prize in Physics, worked in universities doing unpaid volunteer work for thirty years. She did not receive a salary until she won the Nobel Prize.
So what is that pushed these women to be the Nobel minds? Were they one in a million? Was it sheer dumb luck? Were they celebrated just because they were women? What kept them going when the world was busy writing rules for women? It was curiosity. It was the desire to unlock the mysteries of nature and use those discoveries to make the world a better place. It was in the mindset to persevere. It was in the zeal to give it all for science and humanity.
If curiosity drives you, if life around science gives meaning to your existence, if science is the way to your life, then nothing and nobody should stop you from pursuing it only because you are different or don’t fit in a mold. That is what these women teach us, to be limitless.
The world of science lights up in October. The chilly winds of Sweden herald the announcement of the Nobel prize. In years to follow, let Konserthuset Stockholm (the Stockholm Concert Hall) bear evidence of the smiles of female laureates awarded for their life’s work. Let there be no limits. Let there be women in science.
References
- Applications of CRISPR as a potential therapeutic – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34453943/
- Jennifer Doudna on winning the Nobel Prize– Walter Isaacson’s Code Breaker