Jennifer Doudna Wins 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences

Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier have been awarded the 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for their revolutionary work on CRISPR-Cas9, “harnessing an ancient mechanism of bacterial immunity into a powerful and general technology for editing genomes, with wide-ranging implications across biology and medicine.” Since their ground-breaking research on genome editing in 2012, the CRISPR-Cas9 system is now used by research groups worldwide for applications in disease diagnosis and treatment, medical therapeutics, bioenergy, etc.

Their fellow Breakthrough Prize recipients in the Life Sciences include C. David Allis, Victor Ambros, Alim Louis Benabid, Gary Ruvkun, and Emmanuelle Charpentier. This year’s recipients in the Physics and Mathematics categories include Saul Perlmutter, Brian P. Schmidt, Adam Riess, Simon Donaldson, Maxim Kontsevich, Jacob Lurie, Terence Tao and Richard Taylor. Laureates of each prize are chosen by their respective category’s Selection Committee, comprised of previous recipients of the prize.

2015 Breakthrough Prize Winners 

This year’s awards were presented at the 2nd Annual Breakthrough Prize Ceremony, held at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, CA, on November 9, 2014. The event was hosted by Breakthrough Prize founders Sergey Brin and Anne Wojcicki, Jack Ma and Cathy Zhang, Yuri and Julia Milner, Mark Zuckerberg, and Priscilla Chan.

The 2015 Breakthrough Prize Symposia were held at UC Berkeley’s International House on Monday, November 10, 2014.

Press:

• Recipients of the 2015 Breakthrough Prizes in Fundamental Physics and Life Sciences Announced
  2015 Breakthrough Prize Announcement | November 9, 2014

• Scientists, and Universe’s Odd Behavior, Are Recognized With $3 Million Prizes
  New York Times | Dennis Overbuy | November 9, 2014
  

• Jennifer Doudna, Saul Perlmutter named 2015 Breakthrough Prize winners 
  UC Berkeley News Center | Bob Sanders – November 10, 2014

• Top scientists gather for awards funded by tech moguls
  BBC  News | Peter Bowes | November 10, 2014
• Livestream Broadcast: A live-streaming broadcast of The Breakthrough Prize Symposia – “a day of inspiring and enlightening conversations that will shine a spotlight on the science behind the Breakthrough Prizes” – will be broadcast from UC Berkeley’s International House on Monday, November 10, 2014.

• Television Broadcasts: The 2nd Annual Breakthrough Prize Ceremony was broadcast in the United States on the Science Channel on November 15 at 6 PM ET/PT, and televised globally over the weekend of November 22 on BBC World News.

Photos:

Breakthrough Prize laureates Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier accept their awards.

Dick Costolo and Breakthrough Prize laureates Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna with Cameron Diaz.

Breakthrough Prize laureates Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier get ready for the Red Carpet. (Photo: Rodger Novak)

Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier on stage after receiving their awards. (Photo: Rodger Novak)

Rodger Novak, CEO of CRISPR Therapeutics, Breakthrough Prize laureates Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier with IGI Scientific Director Jacob Corn. (Photo: Rodger Novak)

Breakthrough Prize laureates Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier. (Photo: Jacob Corn)