Jennifer Doudna

In August 2012, University of California, Berkeley biochemist Jennifer Doudna and colleagues published an article in the journal Science titled “A Programmable Dual-RNA—Guided DNA Endonuclease in Adaptive Bacterial Immunity.” Though the paper’s title was dry, its impact was revolutionary. In it, Doudna announced that her research group had discovered a simple method for editing genes. An enzyme found in bacteria known as CRISPR–Cas9 could be programmed, she reported, to search out and destroy specific genes.

“Our study reveals a family of endonucleases that use dual-RNAs for site-specific DNA cleavage and highlights the potential to exploit the system for RNA-programmable genome editing,” she and her colleagues reported.…  Seguir leyendo »