Dr. Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuel Charpentier won the Nobel Prize for their contributions to CRISPR-mediated genome editing, becoming only the sixth and seventh women in history to win a Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

In the decade since their discovery, genome editing has become extremely commonplace around laboratories around the world and has enabled researchers to probe the functions of genes at will, pushing the field of molecular biology ahead by leaps and bounds.

It has also most importantly helped researchers develop innovative and promising gene therapies, some now in early clinical trials, for treating rare diseases that were previously untreatable. In March 2020, the first CRISPR-Cas9 gene therapy was administered to someone suffering from a rare condition known as LCA10, which causes childhood blindness and for which no other treatment was available
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