Jennifer A. Doudna, Ph.D. | Academy of Achievement

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Doudna, Ph.D. | Academy of Achievement</title> <meta name="description" content="Jennifer Doudna had recently arrived at Berkeley to accept a professorship in biochemistry when a colleague drew her attention to unusual bacteria found in an abandoned mine. The property of a single protein, Cas9, found in this microbe, led her to a revolutionary new technique of editing the genome. Known as CRISPR (for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats”), the technique she demonstrated is many times faster and far more precise than all previously existing methods. Today, only five years after Doudna first published her findings, researchers all over the world are using CRISPR to explore potential treatments for cancer and diseases of the immune system. The technology also offers the possibility of preventing birth defects and inherited disease, though Doudna herself opposes the concept of so-called “designer babies,” or non-therapeutic tinkering with the human genome. In 2016, Dr. Doudna was awarded the $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, endowed by leading Internet entrepreneurs. She has shared the significance of her discoveries with the public in her book A Crack in Creation."/> <meta name="robots" content="index, follow"/> <meta name="googlebot" content="index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1"/> <meta name="bingbot" content="index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1"/> <link rel="canonical" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/jennifer-a-doudna-ph-d/"/> <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US"/> <meta property="og:type" content="article"/> <meta property="og:title" content="Jennifer A. Doudna, Ph.D. | Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:description" content="Jennifer Doudna had recently arrived at Berkeley to accept a professorship in biochemistry when a colleague drew her attention to unusual bacteria found in an abandoned mine. The property of a single protein, Cas9, found in this microbe, led her to a revolutionary new technique of editing the genome. Known as CRISPR (for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats”), the technique she demonstrated is many times faster and far more precise than all previously existing methods. Today, only five years after Doudna first published her findings, researchers all over the world are using CRISPR to explore potential treatments for cancer and diseases of the immune system. The technology also offers the possibility of preventing birth defects and inherited disease, though Doudna herself opposes the concept of so-called “designer babies,” or non-therapeutic tinkering with the human genome. In 2016, Dr. Doudna was awarded the $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, endowed by leading Internet entrepreneurs. She has shared the significance of her discoveries with the public in her book <em>A Crack in Creation</em>."/> <meta property="og:url" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/jennifer-a-doudna-ph-d/"/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="article:modified_time" content="2020-09-01T15:43:39+00:00"/> <meta property="og:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/doudna-Feature-Image.jpg"/> <meta property="og:image:width" content="2800"/> <meta property="og:image:height" content="1120"/> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"/> <meta name="twitter:creator" content="@achievers1961"/> <meta name="twitter:site" content="@achievers1961"/> <script type="application/ld+json" class="yoast-schema-graph">{"@context":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/#organization","name":"Academy of Achievement","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/","sameAs":["https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://www.linkedin.com/company/american-academy-of-achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChe_87uh1H-NIMf3ndTjPFw","https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_of_Achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://twitter.com/achievers1961"],"logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/#logo","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/12.png","width":1200,"height":630,"caption":"Academy of Achievement"},"image":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/#logo"}},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/#website","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/","name":"Academy of Achievement","description":"A museum of living history","publisher":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/search/{search_term_string}","query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/jennifer-a-doudna-ph-d/#primaryimage","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/doudna-Feature-Image.jpg","width":2800,"height":1120},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/jennifer-a-doudna-ph-d/#webpage","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/jennifer-a-doudna-ph-d/","name":"Jennifer A. 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role="document"> <div class="content"> <main class="main"> <div class="feature-area__container"> <header class="feature-area feature-area--has-image ratio-container ratio-container--feature"> <figure class="feature-box"> <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image feature-area__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/doudna-Feature-Image.jpg [(max-width:544px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/05/doudna-Feature-Image-1400x560.jpg [(max-width:992px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/05/doudna-Feature-Image.jpg"></div> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <figcaption class="feature-area__text ratio-container__text container"> <div class="feature-area__text-inner text-white"> <h2 class="serif-8 feature-area__text-subhead back"><a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever">All achievers</a></h2> <h1 class="serif-1 entry-title feature-area__text-headline">Jennifer A. Doudna, Ph.D.</h1> <h5 class="sans-6 feature-area__blurb">Gene Editing Pioneer</h5> </div> </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </header> </div>  <nav class="in-page-nav row fixedsticky"> <ul class="nav text-xs-center clearfix" role="tablist"> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link active" data-toggle="tab" href="#biography" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Biography">Biography</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#profile" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Profile">Profile</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#interview" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Interview">Interview</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#gallery" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Gallery">Gallery</a> </li> </ul> </nav> <article class="post-62322 achiever type-achiever status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry careers-biochemist careers-molecular-biologist"> <div class="entry-content container clearfix">  <div class="tab-content"> <div class="tab-pane active" id="biography" role="tabpanel"> <section class="achiever--biography"> <div class="banner clearfix"> <div class="banner--single clearfix"> <div class="col-lg-8 col-lg-offset-2"> <div class="banner__image__container"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-takes/id1025864075?mt=2" target="_blank"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <img class="lazyload banner__image" data-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/WhatItTakes_doudna-256-190x190.jpg" alt=""/> </figure> </a> </div> <div class="banner__text__container"> <h3 class="serif-3 banner__headline"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-takes/id1025864075?mt=2" target="_blank"> Listen to this achiever on <i>What It Takes</i> </a> </h3> <p class="sans-6 banner__text m-b-0"><i>What It Takes</i> is an audio podcast produced by the American Academy of Achievement featuring intimate, revealing conversations with influential leaders in the diverse fields of endeavor: public service, science and exploration, sports, technology, business, arts and humanities, and justice.</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <header class="editorial-article__header col-md-8 col-md-offset-2 text-xs-center"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> <h3 class="serif-3 quote-marks">I’ve always been fascinated with evolution. Why is life the way it is now? The code of life is evolving. I’ve always been very, very interested in that process. If there’s a thread to my research over the years, that’s always underlying what we do. It’s thinking about evolution and how it works.</h3> </header> </div> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar clearfix"> <h2 class="serif-3 p-b-1">Her Amazing Molecular Scissors</h2> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> February 19, 1964 </dd> </div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p>Jennifer Doudna was born in Washington, D.C., but when she was seven years old, the family moved to Hilo, Hawaii, and Jennifer became fascinated by the exotic plant and animal life she discovered there.</p> <figure id="attachment_62420" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-62420" style="width: 2048px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-62420 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna-Photo-Credit-Brad-Torchia.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-62420 size-full lazyload" title="Thierry Bouet for the L'Oreal-Unesco For Women in Science Awards 2016" alt="" width="2048" height="1535" data-sizes="(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna-Photo-Credit-Brad-Torchia.jpg 2048w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna-Photo-Credit-Brad-Torchia-380x285.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna-Photo-Credit-Brad-Torchia-760x570.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna-Photo-Credit-Brad-Torchia.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-62420" class="wp-caption-text">Jennifer A. Doudna, Professor of Chemistry and Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, using a combination of cryo-electron microscopy (Cryo-EM) and 3D image reconstruction. (Credit: Thierry Bouet)</figcaption></figure> <p>Her mother taught history at a local community college, and her father taught American literature at the University of Hawaii.  The family home was full of books. Jennifer’s father particularly enjoyed reading about science and natural history.  When Jennifer was in the sixth grade, he gave her a copy of <em>The Double Helix </em>by James Watson, who had won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the DNA molecule.  She was thrilled by the mystery and drama of scientific research as Watson described it.</p> <figure id="attachment_62469" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-62469" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-62469 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-Doudna_Jennifer-LabPhoto.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-62469 size-full lazyload" style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5); font-weight: bold; font-size: 1rem;" alt="On Jennifer Doudna, professor of molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley, is the 2014 recipient of the Lurie Prize in the Biomedical Sciences from the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health. Doudna, who studies what she calls “the secret life of RNA,” will receive a medal and $100,000 honorarium on May 20 in Washington, D.C." width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-Doudna_Jennifer-LabPhoto.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-Doudna_Jennifer-LabPhoto-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-Doudna_Jennifer-LabPhoto-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-Doudna_Jennifer-LabPhoto.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-62469" class="wp-caption-text">Professor Jennifer Doudna in her lab at UC Berkeley. Doudna and her colleagues rocked the research world in 2012 by describing a simple way of editing the DNA of any organism using an RNA-guided protein found in bacteria. This technology, called CRISPR-Cas9, has opened the floodgates of possibility for human and non-human applications of gene editing, including assisting researchers in the fight against HIV, sickle cell disease and muscular dystrophy.</figcaption></figure> <p>Further inspired by her high school chemistry teacher, Jennifer Doudna studied biochemistry at Pomona College in Claremont, California, earning her bachelor’s degree in 1985. She undertook graduate studies in biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology at Harvard Medical School.  Her dissertation research there was supervised by the geneticist Jack W. Szostak, who would later receive the Nobel Prize in Medicine.  Doudna’s research concerned RNA (ribonucleic acid), a nucleic acid present in the cells of all living things.  She focused specifically on ribozymes, molecules of RNA that catalyze biochemical reactions in proteins.</p> <p>After receiving her doctorate in 1989, she continued her work with Dr. Szostak as a research fellow in molecular biology at Massachusetts General Hospital and in genetics at Harvard Medical School.  In her research, Doudna had succeeded in altering the behavior of specific segments of RNA molecules, but further progress was thwarted by the mystery surrounding the actual molecular mechanism of the ribozyme.</p> <figure id="attachment_62529" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-62529" style="width: 4795px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-62529 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2014-AP_260728901425.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-62529 lazyload" alt="" width="4795" height="3200" data-sizes="(max-width: 4795px) 100vw, 4795px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2014-AP_260728901425.jpg 4795w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2014-AP_260728901425-380x254.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2014-AP_260728901425-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2014-AP_260728901425.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-62529" class="wp-caption-text">2014: Breakthrough Prize Life Science laureates Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna arrive at the 2nd Annual Breakthrough Prize Award Ceremony at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. (AP)</figcaption></figure> <p>In 1991, she moved to Boulder, Colorado, to pursue postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Thomas Cech, who had recently won the Nobel Prize for his discovery of the catalytic properties of RNA. In Cech’s laboratory, she sought to crystallize molecules of RNA, the better to determine the three-dimensional structure of ribozymes and compare them with that of enzymes, the catalytic proteins. In Boulder, Doudna met a graduate student, Jamie Cate, who shared her research interests.  His suggestions proved useful, and the collaboration ripened into a romance.</p> <p>At the end of her Colorado fellowship in 1994, Doudna accepted an appointment as assistant professor in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University.  Jamie Cate moved to New Haven with her, and the two were married.</p> <figure id="attachment_62464" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-62464" style="width: 2092px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-62464 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2016-GettyImages-496364032.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-62464 lazyload" alt="" width="2092" height="3000" data-sizes="(max-width: 2092px) 100vw, 2092px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2016-GettyImages-496364032.jpg 2092w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2016-GettyImages-496364032-265x380.jpg 265w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2016-GettyImages-496364032-530x760.jpg 530w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2016-GettyImages-496364032.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-62464" class="wp-caption-text">November 8, 2015: Jennifer Doudna and her husband, Jamie H. D. Cate, a UC Berkeley Professor of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Chemistry, attend the Breakthrough Prize ceremony in Mountain View, California. (Getty)</figcaption></figure> <p>At Yale, Doudna continued the project she had begun in Colorado, and by 1996, she and her group had succeeded in  crystallizing the <em>Tetrahymena </em>group I ribozyme and employing x-ray crystallography to map the three-dimensional structure of its catalytic core.  It was the first time the structure of a ribozyme had been revealed to the world.  The following year, Doudna was named a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator, an appointment that has provided material support for her research ever since.</p> <p>Having mastered an essential technique, Doudna’s group went on to crystallize other ribozymes, including that of the hepatitis delta virus.  In 2000, Doudna received the Waterman Award of the National Science Foundation for her achievements and was promoted to full professor at Yale.  During the following year, she also served as a visiting professor of chemistry at Harvard.</p> <figure id="attachment_62467" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-62467" style="width: 2000px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-62467 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2016-GettyImages-517321960.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-62467 lazyload" alt="" width="2000" height="3000" data-sizes="(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2016-GettyImages-517321960.jpg 2000w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2016-GettyImages-517321960-253x380.jpg 253w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2016-GettyImages-517321960-507x760.jpg 507w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2016-GettyImages-517321960.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-62467" class="wp-caption-text">March 2016: Jennifer Doudna speaks at the “L’Oreal-UNESCO Awards 2016 for Women in Science International,” hosted by Fondation l’Oreal at Maison de la Mutualite in Paris, France. (Photo by Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty)</figcaption></figure> <p>In 2002, Jennifer Doudna and Jamie Cate were both offered professorships at the University of California, Berkeley.  Their son was born the same year, and they have made Berkeley their home ever since.  Doudna continued to collect honors for her research; she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2002, to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003, and to the National Academy of Medicine in 2010.</p> <p>Meanwhile, Doudna continued her research. She gained access to the synchrotron at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for her experiments with high-powered x-ray diffraction.  Her work in Berkeley was to lead to her greatest discovery to date.</p> <figure id="attachment_62459" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-62459" style="width: 1394px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-62459 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2017-A-Crack-in-Creation.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-62459 lazyload" alt="" width="1394" height="2114" data-sizes="(max-width: 1394px) 100vw, 1394px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2017-A-Crack-in-Creation.jpg 1394w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2017-A-Crack-in-Creation-251x380.jpg 251w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2017-A-Crack-in-Creation-501x760.jpg 501w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2017-A-Crack-in-Creation.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-62459" class="wp-caption-text">2017: <em>A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution</em> by Jennifer A. Doudna and Samuel H. Sternberg. Writing with fellow researcher Samuel Sternberg, Doudna shares the thrilling story of her discovery, and passionately argues that enormous responsibility comes with the ability to rewrite the code of life.</figcaption></figure> <p>Doudna’s laboratory entered into a long-distance collaboration with Emmanuelle Charpentier, a French biochemist who was working in Sweden at the time.  Together, they were investigating the function of Cas9, a protein found in the immune system of Streptococcus bacteria<em>.</em>  The Streptococcus immune system functions through “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats” (CRISPR), slicing through the DNA of hostile antibodies to disable them.  Doudna, Charpentier, and their colleagues hypothesized that CRISPR-Cas9 could be deployed to edit the genome of living things, including human beings.  In 2012, they demonstrated that RNA molecules could be programmed to cut and edit targeted DNA molecules.</p> <p>Attempts to edit the genome had met with limited success in the past, but CRISPR technology offered the field of genetic science a swift and efficient technique with nearly limitless possibilities, not only for basic research but for the treatment and prevention of genetic disease.  With her former student Rachel Haurwitz, Doudna has founded a company, Caribou Biosciences, that is now developing CRISPR technology to address issues such as antimicrobial resistance, food scarcity, and vaccine shortages.</p> <figure id="attachment_62433" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-62433" style="width: 3810px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-62433 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2017-Japan-Prize-Foundation.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-62433 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="3810" height="5340" data-sizes="(max-width: 3810px) 100vw, 3810px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2017-Japan-Prize-Foundation.jpg 3810w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2017-Japan-Prize-Foundation-271x380.jpg 271w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2017-Japan-Prize-Foundation-542x760.jpg 542w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2017-Japan-Prize-Foundation.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-62433" class="wp-caption-text">April 19, 2017: Dr. Jennifer A. Doudna receives the Japan Prize during a ceremony at the National Theatre of Japan. The Japan Prize is awarded to scientists and researchers who have made significant contributions to the progress of science and technology, and society, to further the peace and prosperity of mankind. (Japan Prize Foundation)</figcaption></figure> <p>When Doudna and Charpentier made their findings public, the news flew around the world.  Along with the promise of preventing incurable genetic diseases, the new technology revived longstanding fears about the possible abuse of genetic research.  Some journalists speculated that the new technology would lead to the creation of “designer babies” or misguided attempts to build a “super race.” Jennifer Doudna herself was among the first to answer these concerns.  In a widely distributed TED talk, she called for an international discussion to develop appropriate regulation of gene editing technology.</p> <p>In 2014, Jennifer Doudna was the recipient of the Lurie Prize in the Biomedical Sciences from the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health. The following year, she received the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences and was named one of <em>TIME</em> magazine’s “100 Most Influential People.”  She has since received the Gruber Prize in Genetics, the Canada Gairdner International Award, and the Japan Prize. She was elected a Foreign Member of Britain’s Royal Society in 2016.  Jennifer Doudna shared her findings — and her concerns — with the general public in her 2017 book, <em>A Crack in Creation</em>.</p> <figure id="attachment_62593" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-62593" style="width: 1920px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-62593 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp2-LondonSummit_0674.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-62593 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="1920" height="2400" data-sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp2-LondonSummit_0674.jpg 1920w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp2-LondonSummit_0674-304x380.jpg 304w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp2-LondonSummit_0674-608x760.jpg 608w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp2-LondonSummit_0674.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-62593" class="wp-caption-text">Awards Council member Lord Jacob Rothschild presents the Academy of Achievement’s Golden Plate Award to Dr. Jennifer Doudna, co-developer of the CRISPR gene editing technology, in a gala ceremony at Claridge’s in London.</figcaption></figure> <p>Jennifer Doudna and her collaborators at Berkeley applied for a patent on their research, but a group at the Harvard-MIT Broad Institute sought a patent for similar work they had carried out independently. Although Doudna and Charpentier published their findings first, the U.S. Patent Office granted the Broad Institute the patent because the Broad researchers claimed to be first to edit genes in cultured human cells.  Berkeley filed a lawsuit contesting the decision of the Patent Office.</p> <p>A 2017 federal court decision favored the Broad Institute’s claim, a decision upheld on appeal in 2018, although Berkeley has since received 20 CRISPR patents in the United States.  European courts have rejected the Broad Institute’s claim, and a resolution of the conflict between the two institutions is anticipated.</p> <figure id="attachment_62453" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-62453" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-62453 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2018-kavli-prize-wp-2280-236te_2018_kavli-2986.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-62453 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2018-kavli-prize-wp-2280-236te_2018_kavli-2986.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2018-kavli-prize-wp-2280-236te_2018_kavli-2986-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2018-kavli-prize-wp-2280-236te_2018_kavli-2986-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2018-kavli-prize-wp-2280-236te_2018_kavli-2986.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-62453" class="wp-caption-text">The 2018 Kavli Prize laureates with H.M. King Harald (left to right): Virginijus &Scaron;ik&scaron;nys, Jennifer A. Doudna, Albert James Hudspeth, Ewine van Dishoeck, Robert Fettiplace, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Christine Petit. (T. Eckhoff)</figcaption></figure> <p>Meanwhile, scientists around the world have applied CRISPR to cell biology and a broad spectrum of plant and animal research.  Commercial food scientists are employing CRISPR technology to amplify flavors and to create disease-resistant produce.  Medical scientists are pursuing treatments for sickle cell anemia, cystic fibrosis, Huntington’s disease and HIV.  Other researchers have extracted blood cells from patients with cancer and blood diseases, edited the cells and returned them the patients with promising results.  Editing of cells within the human body is now being tested to treat diseases of the eye and liver.</p> <p>Because CRISPR technology is comparatively efficient and inexpensive, many see great danger in unregulated experimentation by unaccountable researchers.  The United States Food and Drug Administration is prohibited from approving any studies that involve editing the human germline — eggs or sperm — and both China and the European Union are also attempting to block such research.  Despite the Chinese ban, in 2019 one unaffiliated researcher in China reported tampering with the genes of a pair of twins in embryo and received criminal penalties including three years’ imprisonment and a six-figure fine.</p> <figure id="attachment_62417" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-62417" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-62417 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-Doudna_CRISPR_Model.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-62417 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="798" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-Doudna_CRISPR_Model.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-Doudna_CRISPR_Model-380x133.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-Doudna_CRISPR_Model-760x266.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-Doudna_CRISPR_Model.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-62417" class="wp-caption-text">Dr. Jennifer A. Doudna holds a model of the CRISPR-Cas9 protein (white) interacting with DNA (orange and blue).  On May 28, 2019, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today issued a patent to the University of California (UC), the University of Vienna and French biologist Emmanuelle Charpentier that covers methods of modulating DNA transcription using the CRISPR-Cas9 system. (Jana A&scaron;enbrennerová for Quanta Magazine/Drew Kelley for WSJ)</figcaption></figure> <p>Since 2018, Jennifer Doudna has held the position of senior investigator at the Gladstone Institutes and professor at the University of California, San Francisco, in addition to her professorships in the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at Berkeley. She directs the Genomics Institute, a joint center of the University of California’s Berkeley and San Francisco campuses. At Berkeley, she holds a Chancellor’s Professorship in Biomedicine and Health, and is the chair of the Chancellor’s Advisor Committee on Biology.</p> <figure id="attachment_62447" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-62447" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-62447 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2-Jennifer-Doudna-and-Frances-Arnold-Einstein-Washington-DC.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-62447 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="3040" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2-Jennifer-Doudna-and-Frances-Arnold-Einstein-Washington-DC.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2-Jennifer-Doudna-and-Frances-Arnold-Einstein-Washington-DC-285x380.jpg 285w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2-Jennifer-Doudna-and-Frances-Arnold-Einstein-Washington-DC-570x760.jpg 570w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2-Jennifer-Doudna-and-Frances-Arnold-Einstein-Washington-DC.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-62447" class="wp-caption-text">2019: Two members of the American Academy of Achievement, Dr. Frances Arnold, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and Dr. Jennifer Doudna, at National Academy of Sciences Albert Einstein Memorial in Washington, D.C.</figcaption></figure> <p>The ongoing research of the renowned Doudna Lab at Berkeley seeks a deeper understanding of all biological processes involving RNA.  Doudna’s group has learned how the hepatitis C virus synthesizes viral proteins — work that could lead to new antiviral drugs with fewer side effects.  Jennifer Doudna has co-founded a number of companies to market CRISPR-related products, including Caribou Biosciences and Mammoth Biosciences.  She also serves on the board of pharmaceutical and consumer healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson.</p> <p>Jennifer Doudna and her family continue to live in Berkeley.  Jamie Cate is a professor at the University of California and works at the nearby Energy Biosciences Institute, with a team pursuing gene editing for the production of biofuels.  Jamie and Jennifer’s son is also reportedly considering a career in the sciences.</p> </body></html> <div class="clearfix"> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="profile" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <header class="editorial-article__header"> <figure class="text-xs-center"> <img class="inductee-badge" src="/web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/inducted-badge@2x.png" alt="Inducted Badge" width="120" height="120"/> <figcaption class="serif-3 text-brand-primary"> Inducted in 2017 </figcaption> </figure> </header> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <dl class="clearfix m-b-0"> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Career</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> <div><a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.molecular-biologist">Molecular Biologist</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.biochemist">Biochemist</a></div> </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> February 19, 1964 </dd> </div> </dl> </aside> <article class="col-md-8 editorial-article clearfix"> <p>Jennifer Doudna had recently arrived at Berkeley to accept a professorship in biochemistry when a colleague drew her attention to unusual bacteria found in an abandoned mine. The property of a single protein, Cas9, found in this microbe, led her to a revolutionary new technique of editing the genome.</p> <p>Known as CRISPR (for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats”), the technique she demonstrated is many times faster and far more precise than all previously existing methods. Today, only five years after Doudna first published her findings, researchers all over the world are using CRISPR to explore potential treatments for cancer and diseases of the immune system. The technology also offers the possibility of preventing birth defects and inherited disease, though Doudna herself opposes the concept of so-called “designer babies,” or non-therapeutic tinkering with the human genome.</p> <p>In 2016, Dr. Doudna was awarded the $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, endowed by leading Internet entrepreneurs. She has shared the significance of her discoveries with the public in her book <em>A Crack in Creation</em>.</p> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="interview" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <div class="col-md-12 interview-feature-video"> <figure> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/Kl0kKPptBJE?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna_Jennifer_2019_MasterEdit.00_09_27_01.Still004-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna_Jennifer_2019_MasterEdit.00_09_27_01.Still004-760x428.jpg"></div> <div class="video-tag sans-4"> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> <div class="video-tag__text">Watch full interview</div> </div> </div> </figure> </div> <header class="col-md-12 text-xs-center m-b-2"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> </header> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <h2 class="serif-3 achiever--biography-subtitle">Her Amazing Molecular Scissors</h2> <div class="sans-2">Berkeley, California</div> <div class="sans-2">May 17, 2019</div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8">   <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Can you remember a moment when you first realized the potential of what you were doing, that it could end certain diseases? What did it feel like?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: I had a wonderful email from a former student in my lab who is now studying for his M.D.-Ph.D., but at the time, he was working in our research lab here at UC Berkeley, and he reminded me of a wonderful day when I was — which, in retrospect, is wonderful. At the time, it was just business as usual.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/QN-EYAiS9TY?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna_Jennifer_2019_MasterEdit.00_12_43_27.Still012-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna_Jennifer_2019_MasterEdit.00_12_43_27.Still012-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/passion/">Passion</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I was in the lab with a lab member of mine, Martin Jinek, who was the person who was doing work on a protein called Cas9, part of the CRISPR system. We call it CRISPR-Cas9. And we were trying to figure out how it worked. It was pretty clearly an RNA-guided enzyme that could find and cut DNA. And the question was: ”How does it do that? <em>Does</em> it do that, and if it does, how does it work?”</p> <p>He was doing experiments to answer that question. And he eventually figured out that this system could be programmed, literally, with different segments of RNA that have the same sequence of chemical letters that match those letters in DNA. That’s what allows it to be programmed to find and cut DNA at a particular place in a cell.</p> <p>And this student of mine, whose name is Prashant Bhat, reminded me of a day when he came into the lab to do his experiments. He saw me and Martin Jinek leaning over a light box in our lab — which was a way of visualizing the data from one of Martin’s experiments — in which we were just looking at each other and high-fiving, and we were just so excited. And why? It was because that was the first experiment where Martin had showed how the system could be programmed, and also how we could simplify it compared to what nature had done.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p>We turned it into a two-component system, just one type of RNA and one protein that were necessary for this RNA-guided, DNA-cutting reaction to work, this chemistry to happen.  And I think, for us, that was really — that precious email from Prashant Bhat reminded me of that — one of those moments that we all live for as scientists, where you make a discovery that you realize is profound in a way.  It was much bigger than the experiment began.  It’s something that could have big implications because of the way it works.</p> <figure id="attachment_62510" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-62510" style="width: 3072px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-62510 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2012-Doudna-photo1.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-62510 lazyload" alt="" width="3072" height="2304" data-sizes="(max-width: 3072px) 100vw, 3072px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2012-Doudna-photo1.jpg 3072w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2012-Doudna-photo1-380x285.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2012-Doudna-photo1-760x570.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2012-Doudna-photo1.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-62510" class="wp-caption-text">2012: (left to right) Emmanuelle Charpentier, Jennifer Doudna, Martin Jinek, Krzysztof Chylinski and Ines Fonfara. This international “Cas9” team discovered a programmable RNA structure for cutting DNA at specific sequences.</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>Did you really high-five each other in the lab?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Well, whether we really did that is probably up for debate. And the reason I say that is because, knowing Martin Jinek, he’s a very subdued individual.  He’s very scholarly, and he would always try to — I would get very excited about things and he would always tell me, “Now, Jennifer, no. We have to wait. I’ve got to do another control, and I’ve got to repeat that experiment.  Before we get excited, let’s make sure.”</p> <p><strong>How do you describe what CRISPR is to the layperson? </strong></p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/f1tIpuPJrlM?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna_Jennifer_2019_MasterEdit.00_01_50_19.Still007-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna_Jennifer_2019_MasterEdit.00_01_50_19.Still007-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Jennifer Doudna: CRISPR is really a fabulous tool for doing surgery on DNA, and it’s basically a way to alter the code of life. It’s a way to change the DNA sequence in cells so precisely that we can now alter a single letter in the code of a human cell. A human cell has six billion individual letters — three billion base pairs of those letters. We can change a single one with this technology and do other things as well. So I think that this has given scientists a way to rewrite DNA that provides opportunities both for fundamental research to understand what the DNA code is telling us about the way life is, as well as to — in the future — do things that will probably correct disease-causing mutations, create plants that are better adapted to their environments, and many other things.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p><strong>So let’s say we have a book with thousands of words.  Basically, now you can go in and take out the misspelled word, or in this case a disease gene.</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: That’s correct.  Yes.  The idea is that you can actually correct a disease-causing mutation, even something as small as a single letter that’s gone awry.</p> <p><strong>What are the most exciting applications for this?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Well, there’s many, but I think the ones that are probably closest along include curing sickle cell anemia, which is a disease that involves a single letter that needs to be corrected in a single gene of a human cell, a human red blood cell.  That’s something that has already been cured in cells growing in laboratories, and also in animal models, and we’re now at a point where several groups are about to begin clinical trials in people.</p> <figure id="attachment_62544" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-62544" style="width: 3403px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-62544 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-Jennifer-Doudna-Jussi-Puikonen-ORIGINEEL-3.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-62544 lazyload" alt="" width="3403" height="4537" data-sizes="(max-width: 3403px) 100vw, 3403px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-Jennifer-Doudna-Jussi-Puikonen-ORIGINEEL-3.jpg 3403w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-Jennifer-Doudna-Jussi-Puikonen-ORIGINEEL-3-285x380.jpg 285w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-Jennifer-Doudna-Jussi-Puikonen-ORIGINEEL-3-570x760.jpg 570w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-Jennifer-Doudna-Jussi-Puikonen-ORIGINEEL-3.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-62544" class="wp-caption-text">Jennifer A. Doudna grew up in Hilo, a small town in Hawaii. Her father, a literature professor at the University of Hawaii, loved reading popular books about science and gave her Jim Watson’s <em>The Double Helix</em>. (Jussi Puikkonen)</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>How about all the women that we know that carry a gene that makes them more likely to have breast cancer? Can you edit that out?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: BRCA1, BRCA2, yeah, these are mutations well known to correlate with a high risk for breast and ovarian cancers in women.  Right now, it would be difficult to use gene editing to correct that mutation — not because we can’t do it in individual cells, but because it would be hard to correct it in every cell of the body.  So I think that’s, quite frankly, one of the current challenges with the technology, is just delivering it into cells and tissues.</p> <p>The reason that sickle cell anemia is one of the first targets clinically is because cells can be edited outside the body and then replaced, and that can be done in a way where those cells then take over the blood supply in the person and replace the cells that are defective with cells that are corrected.</p> <p><strong>Can you tell us about other uses for this amazing tool?</strong></p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/yX-ja1vkltI?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna_Jennifer_2019_MasterEdit.00_15_56_01.Still013-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna_Jennifer_2019_MasterEdit.00_15_56_01.Still013-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Jennifer Doudna: One of the amazing things about this technology is that it’s really opened the door to experiments that scientists are doing in many different kinds of organisms to understand how they work and why they are the way they are. What in their DNA makes wheat susceptible to certain kinds of funguses, or fungi? What is it in people that makes us have certain kinds of properties in our bodies? What in our DNA creates certain traits? I think that is something that maybe most people who are outside of science don’t realize, but there’s been an enormous uptick in the pace of scientific research that’s driven by the power of this technology to allow scientists to ask questions in their laboratories that could never be asked in the past.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>In ten years, what do you think this technology might do in terms of everyday life? How many people will it have touched?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/uGoVvQIPyf4?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna_Jennifer_2019_MasterEdit.00_34_01_00.Still003-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna_Jennifer_2019_MasterEdit.00_34_01_00.Still003-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Jennifer Doudna: I think many of us will, by then, because I think we’ll all be eating food and using crops and plants that will be genome edited. I think that we will be benefiting from medical breakthroughs that will have happened due to genome editing. Whether it’s an actual therapy or not, we’ll certainly benefit from the biomedical knowledge that’s coming from using this technology to understand the cause of disease, for example — and to really kind of start to get at this whole opportunity of personalized medicine that really comes down to, you know, every one of us is a little bit different, based on our DNA. And understanding that, at a molecular level, I think, is coming.</p> <p>And then, I think, also, we didn’t talk about this, but benefiting from other applications of CRISPR, whether it’s controlling the spread of mosquito-borne disease, whether it’s making chemicals in research laboratories or in commercial settings that are made using bacteria or fungi instead of polluting chemical processes — I think that’s also coming with CRISPR, sort of “synthetic biology” is what we call it. So I think, within ten years, probably all of us will have many things that touch our lives that will come from CRISPR.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Could CRISPR be used to treat something like depression, or is that too linked to individual personality?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/exKO0C-jTLA?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna_Jennifer_2019_MasterEdit.00_23_22_01.Still018-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna_Jennifer_2019_MasterEdit.00_23_22_01.Still018-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Well, that question, to me, really brings up a couple of different but important points. One is that something like depression is not the result of a single gene or even a handful of genes. It’s almost certainly the result of hundreds or thousands of genes, as well as the environment that a person has experienced. So it’s going to be very complicated to try to — even if we wanted to — to fix it with genome editing, at least the way the technology is right now. And the other thing is — the other point about your question that’s so interesting — is that it sort of gets to this question of what makes us human. What makes us unique as individuals? What do we value about the diversity of our life here on Earth? I think that, for many people, the diversity of life is one of the things that makes it so rich and so wonderful. So we wouldn’t want to have a way to make us all the same.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p>It gets into the whole question of eugenics and access. Who decides? Who regulates this? Who makes those decisions? Who pays for it? Who should be allowed to do this? All of these kinds of questions.  And again, I want to emphasize that the technology today doesn’t allow that yet, but it’s close enough that we know we need to be considering those questions.</p> <figure id="attachment_62549" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-62549" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-62549 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-LondonSummit_0450.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-62549 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-LondonSummit_0450.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-LondonSummit_0450-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-LondonSummit_0450-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-LondonSummit_0450.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-62549" class="wp-caption-text">2017: Guest of honor Jennifer A. Doudna addresses delegates and members at a symposium during the American Academy of Achievement’s 52nd annual International Achievement Summit at Claridge’s Hotel in Mayfair, London.</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>In your book <em>A Crack in Creation, </em>you wrote that not since the atomic bomb has a technology so alarmed its inventors that they warned the world about it.  That’s quite a statement, and you actually were one of the ones who were convening people and saying, “Hold on here, let’s look at what we’re creating.”  Did you get pushback from that?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna:  I would say I didn’t get pushback, but definitely, we heard a lot of different opinions about the technology, as you would want, I think, in a conversation.  I’m thinking, in particular, about a meeting that I convened with my colleagues in January of 2015, a small meeting up in the Napa Valley.  We just had some clinicians, some fundamental researchers.  We also had scientists who had been involved in the discussions of ethics of molecular cloning back in the 1970s in attendance. It was really a meeting to start grappling with: We’ve got this powerful technology of genome editing;  it’s moving incredibly rapidly in the scientific arena. And yet, none of our government regulators at that time — or many people outside of science — knew anything about it.  So it was this weird kind of feeling of sitting on something so powerful and moving so fast, and it could affect many, many people, and yet most of them weren’t even aware of it yet.</p> <p><strong>That meeting in Napa — was there some unintended thing that you learned from gathering those minds up there?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna:  There was a wonderful comment that was made by a colleague of mine up there.</p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/oz8s28hk1bw?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna_Jennifer_2019_MasterEdit.00_23_59_27.Still019-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna_Jennifer_2019_MasterEdit.00_23_59_27.Still019-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/integrity/">Integrity</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I remember sitting around a table — about the size of the table in this room — and debating, in particular, about this issue of human embryo editing. Should people do that? Is that something that we should be trying to work towards or work against, or how do we think about that? And a lot of people around the table were talking about all the dangers of doing it and how risky it could be, <em>et cetera</em>, <em>et cetera</em>. And then, at one point, a colleague of mine leaned across the table and said, “Wait a minute. At some point, this technology may be accurate enough that we’ll all realize that it would be unethical <em>not</em> to use it that way, to correct the disease-causing mutation for cystic fibrosis or Huntington’s disease or things like that.” And it made everybody stop and think for a minute and just say, “Wow. We could turn this whole question on its head.”</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_62548" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-62548" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-62548 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-LondonSummit_0447.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-62548 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-LondonSummit_0447.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-LondonSummit_0447-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-LondonSummit_0447-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-LondonSummit_0447.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-62548" class="wp-caption-text">Dr. Jennifer A. Doudna explains the work that led to development of CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology, which was described in the journal <em>Science</em> in 2012, during a symposium at the 2017 International Achievement Summit.</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>What worries you most about the new technology that you’re working on?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Well, it might surprise you, maybe, but the thing I feel most worried about today is really just — I worry about the pace of this technology outpacing our collective ability to understand the implications of what it does. What I mean by that is that I think that for scientists to race ahead to do things that we <em>can</em> do, but, to coin a phrase from that wonderful line in <em>Jurassic Park</em> by Jeff Goldblum — love it! — “We <em>can</em> do it doesn’t mean we <em>should</em> do it.”  And I think it’s really that.  It’s wanting to make sure that scientists are thinking about the implications of their work, especially with respect to genome editing, prior to just rushing forward.</p> <p><strong>There are such upsides. You can make a drought-resistant plant and save people from dying of hunger.  You might soon hopefully end some cancers.  With so much upside, how do you regulate?</strong></p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/cdXmz5AEkN0?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna_Jennifer_2019_MasterEdit.00_16_39_07.Still014-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna_Jennifer_2019_MasterEdit.00_16_39_07.Still014-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/integrity/">Integrity</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Jennifer Doudna: It’s a complicated issue because science is global, of course, and people are working in every part of the world now using CRISPR-Cas9 technology, as well as many other technologies. And how do we create a regulatory framework that people will honor in these different jurisdictions? How do we create even a community of scientists where there’s kind of a code of ethics that everybody would buy into?</p> <p>In my view, it really does have to begin with kind of a grassroots effort. It has to begin with scientists coming together and discussing these topics, and I’ve been involved in convening meetings around this. Fortunately, I think that idea has really spread in the genome editing field to include now people — not just scientists — but also people that are stakeholders, whether they be patients with genetic diseases, or clinicians that hope to use this in the future, or agricultural scientists who want to use it in plants and other types of applications.</p> <p>So we are seeing a pretty broad cohort of people that are starting to attend these meetings and are interested in the topic. But I think the real challenge ahead is to figure out how to put all of that effort and energy into a cohesive document or consensus kind of opinion piece that people could buy into.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_62595" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-62595" style="width: 1691px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-62595 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-doudna-molecule-lab.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-62595 lazyload" alt="" width="1691" height="1730" data-sizes="(max-width: 1691px) 100vw, 1691px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-doudna-molecule-lab.jpg 1691w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-doudna-molecule-lab-371x380.jpg 371w, /web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-doudna-molecule-lab-743x760.jpg 743w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-doudna-molecule-lab.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-62595" class="wp-caption-text">Jennifer Doudna has taken a lead role in the science behind CRISPR and in the ethical discussion that has ensued.</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>Do scientists agree that we shouldn’t have designer babies? That we shouldn’t edit the human embryo?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Oh, certainly they don’t agree on that, not at all.  I think, for many people, the opportunity to correct a disease-causing mutation at the time of conception rather than having to wait and do it much later is an attractive idea.  The difficulty is in thinking about all of the other implications of that kind of genome editing, as well as the technical challenges with it.</p> <p><strong>When people talk about you, they say that “Dr. Doudna has the golden touch.  She knows what to work on.”  Do you think that’s fair?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: That’s interesting that you say that, or that people say that.</p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/-PXBEdt7wgw?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna_Jennifer_2019_MasterEdit.00_06_47_26.Still008-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna_Jennifer_2019_MasterEdit.00_06_47_26.Still008-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>When I was in graduate school, I worked with a wonderful scientist, Jack Szostak. And that’s how I felt about him. I felt like the thing that he had so wonderfully — and it was kind of one of those <em>je ne sais quoi</em>, hard-to-put-your-finger-on-it sorts of traits — is that he had that quality, I felt. He knew the right experiments to do. He knew the right questions to ask.</p> <p>He didn’t know the answers because that’s why we do science, but he knew the right ones to ask, and I always thought to myself, “Gosh, if I could bottle that up somehow and figure out what that is.” And I never imagined that people would see me that way, but I know I really consciously tried to understand that about the people that I’ve trained with because I think I have benefited from mentors who were able to do that very beautifully.</p> <p>I’ve always been driven by a fascination with evolution. Why is life the way it is now? And, of course, we’re seeing life on our planet at a snapshot in time. It was different in the past, and it will be different in the future. And it’s all strung together by DNA, right? The code of life is kind of evolving over time. And I’ve always been very, very interested in that process. So I feel like, if there’s a thread to my research over the years, that’s kind of always underlying what we do, is thinking about evolution and how it works.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>If you had to say what you think your gift is, is it seeing things ahead of time? Is it working with people? There are many smart biochemists, but there’s only one you. What do you think is your gift?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/0tDpZ4RFZkQ?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna_Jennifer_2019_MasterEdit.00_17_40_20.Still015-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna_Jennifer_2019_MasterEdit.00_17_40_20.Still015-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/preparation/">Preparation</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Jennifer Doudna: I think that I’ve always had a knack for experimental science. It’s a feeling I have about both the questions that I want to try to answer that I think are important, as well as the way to go about doing that. And I once heard my post-doc advisor, Tom Cech — another very wonderful, celebrated scientist, a Nobel laureate — he once described me as somebody who had a map in her head of experiments that were to be done and could sort of see a whole process. And it was, somehow, when he said that about me, that I kind of realized, “Gosh, I think he’s right. That is how my mind works.” I hadn’t really thought about it before, but I think that is what I would say about me, is that I always have had kind of a talent there of thinking about how I’m going to do experiments, and I still have it. You know, when I meet with people in my lab, I find that, even though, sadly, I’m not in my lab anymore doing actual experiments, I’m still good at thinking about how to do those experiments, which ones are important to do, and how to set them up so that we get data that are going to tell us something meaningful.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>That’s fascinating. When you wake up in the morning, do you have a vision of a map? What does it look like?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235233if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/KvpyQJf3890?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna_Jennifer_2019_MasterEdit.00_19_11_13.Still016-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna_Jennifer_2019_MasterEdit.00_19_11_13.Still016-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/preparation/">Preparation</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Jennifer Doudna: It’s not really visual. It’s not something I could draw on a piece of paper. It’s more a process, in a way, right? It’s almost like a flowchart. It’s sort of thinking, “Okay, if we want to figure this out, we could do this, and then this, and then, depending on how that works out, we can do this or this,” you know, that kind of thing. It’s almost like a flowchart. And there’s a logic there. And then I’ll think, “Okay, and if we want to do that experiment, I know we need these controls so that we can interpret the data,” and then I’ll start thinking about how to— logistically — how to get all the pieces to — this person would be good at doing this one thing, this other person over here would be great to help us out with this other thing, that person over there would be a great collaborator because they know how to do something that we don’t know how to do. That kind of thing. So I do love team-building and thinking about how do you — if you want to answer a question in the lab, how do you do it? Both, which experiments to do, and also, “How do I bring the right people together to do those experiments?” I love doing that. It’s fun.</p> </div> </div>     <aside class="collapse" id="full-interview">    <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>How do you think growing up in Hawaii affected your work, later in life?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: I loved where I grew up. It was such a magical place in many ways. It was sort of a kid’s dream, you know. We had the freedom to run around in the afternoons, and we were definitely checking out our sugarcane fields, snacking on occasional cane stalks, but also exploring guava trees, and running around in the huge tall California grass that grew in the back of our house. It was just a wonderful experience of the native world.</p> <p><strong>You called it the sleeping grass?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Sleeping grass, yeah. It would sit there, and when you stepped on it, it’d poke you, but then it would close up, the leaves would close up. It seemed like some kind of interesting chemistry going on there. I wanted to figure that one out.</p> <p><strong>Do you think you were more curious about the natural world than other kids?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: I didn’t think about it, honestly. I felt like one of the neighborhood kids, you know. I played kickball. I liked to play kickball out in the street. I had a horse. I used to ride horseback and ride in 4-H little rodeo events and things like that. So I just had a pretty active outdoor — very outdoor kind of life.</p> <p><strong>When you were growing up among the sugarcane fields in Hawaii, do you remember some of the first questions you wanted to answer?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Oh, there were so many. I wondered why sleeping grass closes when you touch it. What’s going on? What’s the chemistry there? I wondered about, you know, I would walk on lava rock, and I would see all these colors and shapes in the rock, and I would wonder why. Why did lava in one part of the island look so different from lava on other parts of the island? There must be different chemistry going on there. I was always thinking about the chemistry under it. I wanted to know about that, and then, just about the plant life. I mean there were so many fascinating plants growing in Hawaii that I didn’t see growing anywhere else, and I always wondered, “Why is that?” So things like that.</p> <p><strong>Your father taught American literature and your mother taught history. </strong><strong>So were books a big deal in your house?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Books were a big deal. We had a lot of those. My dad, his specialty was Henry David Thoreau, so we had multiple copies of <em>Walden</em> around our house and people reading <em>Walden</em> at various dinner tables. That was something that happened quite regularly. My dad also loved reading all kinds of things outside of his specialty, including about science. So one of the really cool things for me, growing, up was that, without even really thinking about it, I got exposed to some really interesting science writers, people like Lewis Thomas — and James Watson with <em>The Double Helix</em>, his book about the discovery of the DNA structure — and books written by medical doctors who were sleuthing the cause of disease in patients. So there were quite a range of things that my dad read or gave to me to read and that we discussed in our house that I think really gave me a sense of what it was like to be a scientist.</p> <p><strong>How old were you when you read <em>The Double Helix</em>?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: I think I was in middle school. I was 12 or 13.</p> <p><strong>And what was interesting about it?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Well, hindsight is always 20/20. People now say, “Well, weren’t you struck by Rosalind Franklin’s role and how she was maybe treated by these scientists?” Actually, I didn’t think about that at the time. Isn’t that interesting? I was so captivated by the story of discovering the structure of DNA. I was so amazed by the possibility that you could, as a scientist, ask a question that detailed and figure out the answer. It seemed amazing.</p> <p>I guess, for me, that was the first time that I had a sense of science as a process — you know what I mean? — as a growing, living thing that was created by people rather than, you know, when you’re in grade school. You have science textbooks that, at least in my day, were pretty cut-and-dried, and science seemed kind of boring. It seemed like memorizing a lot of facts, and it didn’t seem all that interesting to me. But when I read <em>The Double Helix</em>, that was the first time I had the sense of being a sleuth. You’re on a trail, you’re hunting something down, you’re trying to figure something out, and you’ve got just bits and pieces of data, and you’ve got to try to put a story together. That was amazing to me.</p> <p><strong>As a junior in high school, you heard a lecture about why cells become cancerous. What effect did that have on you?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: In high school, I had — in tenth grade — had a fabulous chemistry class. Miss Wong was our teacher, and she was very good at helping us kids understand the process of doing science — that science is experiments. You ask a question and then you figure out how to answer it in the laboratory. So for me, I became very interested in chemistry, but I knew I liked the living natural world. So those were just nebulous interests of mine at the time. And then, when I heard this lecture by a biochemist talking about her research into why cells become cancerous, it suddenly gelled for me. I realized that’s what I want to do: I want to figure out the chemistry of living things. I want to understand the molecules that go awry in a cell that becomes a cancer cell. How does that work?</p> <p><strong>How old were you?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: I was probably 15 at the time, 15 or 16.</p> <p><strong>Was there anything else about Miss Wong that made an impression?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: I certainly didn’t know any female scientists at that time, except the famous ones — Marie Curie — but I didn’t know anybody living that was a female scientist. I just didn’t know them. So it seemed really exotic to me to — first of all — see this lecture by a woman scientist, and secondly, to think to myself, “Wow! I wonder if I could do that. I wonder if I could be a scientist.” I still remember I had this little chill of thinking,”It would be really weird and wild to become a scientist. I wonder if I could really do that?”</p> <p><strong>Now you’ve been in a lot of rooms with scientists. How often are you still either the only woman or one of the only women?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: I think there’s been a lot of advances for women — certainly in my area in the biological sciences — over the last few decades. So I feel very fortunate that right now, in my department at the University of California, Berkeley, for example, we have quite a good number of women at all stages of their career, from very senior tenured women to women who are just starting their research.</p> <p>But that being said, I find that we still see that in the more senior levels of academic science, as well as all across the business world, there definitely is a lack of women that you see. And I do experience things like — especially business meetings or higher level administrative meetings — where I find that there aren’t very many women in the room. Occasionally, I’m the only one.</p> <p><strong>Do you think women scientists work differently than men do?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: There’s been a lot written about that. I think there are some trends that I see that are different between the genders. But generally, that’s not really how I think about things. I tend to just think of myself primarily, when I’m in a professional setting, as in the context of my work, and what I know about, and what I can contribute to.</p> <p>I think that it is true — or certainly, I’ve seen in my experience — that I think women tend to not trust themselves as much as maybe they should, not to put themselves forward as much as maybe they should. So I always encourage all students in my lab — but especially women — if I see them maybe doing that, to tell them, “Yes, you are good enough to apply for that job. Yes, you should apply for that fellowship. Yes, please do apply to attend that graduate program. You are good enough to do it.” And just to have self-confidence, trust themselves, and to try things, take a risk. I think sometimes women talk themselves out of things when they don’t need to.</p> <p><strong>You have two sisters: one who’s in the arts, one who works for the government, and then you have this great science brain. The same parents, different kids. Since we’re talking about genetics, how do you understand these differences?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: It’s genetics in action! It’s hard to say. Yeah, we’re all really different in many ways. Not in every way. You can tell we’re from the same family in certain ways, but I think that we all have really different interests, and that’s something that’s made our family fun. I think I saw that in my parents, too. Like, I described my father being a literature professor who was nonetheless very interested in science, and I could see, had he a different lifetime — or there was an alternate universe or something — he could have easily been a scientist, I think.</p> <p><strong>What about your other interests? What do you do to relax and have fun?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: I like gardening. I love playing with plants. I’m a big tomato fan. I grow tomatoes at home. I grow flowers, herbs. So I do a fair amount of that. And also, I’m very much an outdoors enthusiast, so I do a fair amount of hiking, biking, running, things like that. I run 10K races occasionally with my son, and that’s fun.</p> <p><strong>Do you think these things increase your creativity or help with your work?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I have found that I tend to have my best ideas and creative moments when I’m not in the lab, you know, when I’m doing something else. I’m thinking about something else seemingly, and suddenly, I’ll think, “Wait a minute. This would be a really cool thing to do in the lab.” And I also find that a lot of times, especially if I’ve been relaxing a little bit, or just not focusing on work for some period of time — either a little vacation or even just taking a day off of work or spending time on the weekends going for a hike — I’ll often find that it’s those moments that will stimulate a creative new idea. I’ll wake up in the morning thinking about our science, and I’ll suddenly think, “Oh wait, there’s something really interesting here. We should pursue that.”</p> <p><strong>Can you think of an example?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: I guess, if we go back to the early days for us with CRISPR, even before the molecules that we worked on that are now being used for genome editing, I was actually studying with a couple of my lab members how bacteria fight viral infection using a system known as CRISPR.</p> <p>In those days, we were studying some of the proteins that are responsible for cutting up the pieces of RNA, which are the chemical labels that these proteins use to find other molecules in bacteria. And it was really — I had gone on a small hike with a couple of my lab members up in — I think we were in Muir Woods, which is — for those folks that know Northern California, you probably know Muir Woods — but if you don’t, it’s a beautiful redwood forest that was established many decades ago that really has preserved the beauty of redwood trees here in the Northern California area.</p> <p>So anyhow, we were up there hiking, and in the course of that hike, we were just kind of chitchatting about various things, not necessarily science, but when I got back from that hike, I was talking with one of the students in the lab, Rachel Haurwitz, who is now a very successful CEO of a company that we founded together.</p> <p>But in that conversation, we talked about some of the work that we were doing in the lab, and I think, for me, that was maybe one of the first moments where I started thinking that the work we were doing could be useful as a technology. I wasn’t necessarily thinking about genome editing at that moment, but I was thinking about ways that we could use CRISPR proteins to find pieces of viral DNA and RNA and how we might be able to use that as a research tool. So, for me, that was, in a way, the beginning of really thinking about these CRISPR systems both as a curiosity-driven research project but also as a potential source of new technology.</p> <p><strong>When you focus consciously on a problem, what’s that like?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: I kind of get into a zone. I have a desk in my kitchen at home, and that’s often where I’ll sit. I can look out at my garden, and that’s always a source of inspiration, at some level. But I’ll often sit there when I’m working or thinking or reading. A lot of times, I’m reading and I’m taking notes and I’m kind of puzzling something out. Sometimes it’s just, I’m out weeding my tomato plants and, like I said, suddenly something will come to me, and I’ll think, “Ooh!” And then the other thing is that I found that I have to keep a notebook by the side of my bed because it’s not uncommon that I’ll wake up at some hour of the day or night — early day or late night — and have an idea and think, “Ooh, that’s interesting. I want to pursue that.” And I’ll just jot it down. I’m usually scribbling in the dark. It’s like I can’t see. I’m just trying to scribble enough that I can read it in the morning and remember the idea.</p> <p><strong>So when you’re talking about literally rewriting the code of life or hopefully eradicating some diseases that afflict millions of people, how do you have a balanced life? Don’t you feel like you should be in the lab all the time?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Sure. But you know, there’s always juggling going on with everything, even at work. In my younger years, I was a real lab rat. I just worked a lot because I wanted to. I just loved it. I love being in the lab. I love the feeling of discovery, but I also had — I’m a realist, too, and students that might be watching this might be thinking, “But science can be so frustrating,” and I hear you. It can be.</p> <p>So I think, for me, it was critical that I had other things to distract me from my frustrations at times at work. I always loved gardening, for example. I’ve always had a little garden growing wherever I lived. I’ve always done a lot of hiking and biking, and when I lived in Colorado, I did rollerblading and just getting outdoors and getting away from things that way.</p> <p>But nowadays, I have to balance my love of work and research in the lab with my son’s needs, the fact that I have a husband at home, and a family to spend time with, and I also am responsible for my mother, up until recently. So just things like that. I think it’s always about balance.</p> <p>It’s absolutely possible, and I have many friends who are also women, highly successful, have families and they figure it out. I think it helps to have a really supportive partner. That’s what I’ve found. It’s incredibly helpful. My husband is the most supportive partner on the planet.</p> <p><strong>When you say supportive, what’s the key thing that he does? </strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: He’s a great all-around parent, confidant, fellow scientist, colleague, romantic partner all bundled into one. And so I think, for us, we’ve always viewed our relationship as, we have our private life and our family and our son, and we also have our science together, and we enjoy both. We kind of wear different hats, even with each other. Also, my husband is very understanding about my — especially now — my crazy schedule, my travel. I travel a lot. So he’s the one, more than me, frankly, who is going to the high school meetings with my son, and going to robotics competitions with our son, helping to coach their team, just all of the things that you really need a parent to do.</p> <p><strong>Have you ever felt like you should give your son some very important book, as your father gave you?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: I haven’t really done that. Maybe I should. We do read a lot in our house. I brought a book home last night, and I had it sitting on the kitchen table, and my son saw it, and he said, “Oh, what’s that, Mom? What’s that book?” And it’s a novel, but it’s written by a young man who — not so young anymore, more like my age — who is Vietnamese, and it’s kind of a novel about the Vietnam War. He thought it looked really interesting. So we read all sorts of things in the house. My son actually loves math and he’s a bit of a math whiz. So the kinds of books that he tends to read for fun are actually fun books about mathematics. So those are ones that he turns me on to.</p> <p><strong>So many people who are great in math also have some extra ability in music. Do you play music?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: I think that skipped a generation. My mother played the piano. I tried and it kind of never gelled for me. Now my son is a great piano player and also plays viola, and I asked him recently, “If you somehow didn’t pursue science, what else would you do?” and he said, “Oh, I’d be a musician.”</p> <p><strong>What do you think he’ll end up doing?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: I think my son wants to be some kind of an engineer, mathematician, computer scientist, physicist. He loves the physical sciences.</p> <p><strong>It’s so hard to predict when these talents or interests will appear or to know where they come from. One of the things that worries people about genetic engineering is the idea that someone will try to use science to create a “super race.” Do you think that’s a realistic fear?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Not really. It’s kind of a science fiction-y kind of fear. I think, for many reasons, that’s not something that we have to worry about right now or even in the near future. I do think that, you know, making changes to the human germline is coming.</p> <p><strong>The germline?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: The germline — that means making changes to the DNA that become inheritable. So they change the DNA, not just in an individual, but in their children, and all of their progeny going forward — all of their children’s children. So it becomes an inherited trait. That’s a profound thing. There’s no doubt that this is coming.</p> <p><strong>Has anyone done that so far?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: It was announced at a meeting in Hong Kong last November by a scientist who said that he had actually made changes to the germline of two baby girls who were born. I think that announcement catalyzed a lot of the conversations. I think that’s really motivating people to move with a bit more speed and focus in terms of understanding the technology today, where it’s going, and how we ensure responsible use.</p> <p><strong>At this moment, it’s illegal to do that in the United States, isn’t it?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Yeah. It wouldn’t be possible to do it for a couple of reasons. One is that federal funding is not available. It cannot be used for any kind of human embryo work — not just genome editing — any kind of human embryo research. And the other is that the Food and Drug Administration that reviews any kind of clinical therapeutics or procedures is not allowed to even review a procedure that would affect human embryos, as we’re talking about.</p> <p><strong>But that’s not true in other countries, and that could change in the United States.</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Yeah, it could. It could. And in other countries, you’re right. They have different types of regulatory structures in other places. So there’s no doubt in my mind that that kind of use will happen in the future. It’s a question of when, not if.</p> <p><strong>You’ve compared this in a way to the creation of the atom bomb. Just to give people an idea of the possible applications, and the changes that this technology is bringing, what else could we compare it to?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: We could certainly compare it to the early days of — I would call it modern molecular biology — molecular cloning. This was back in the 1970s, when scientists first began making copies of particular pieces of DNA, being able to clone the insulin gene, for example, to make insulin for people that are diabetic and do that in an industrial setting. That was also revolutionary. It was the birth of companies like Genentech, and now, many, many other biotechnology companies that are creating the therapies that many people are benefiting from today. So it’s sort of that. I would say we’re sort of at another kind of revolution of that nature, where it’s now possible to do things that just a few short years ago scientists didn’t have access to.</p> <p><strong>After Dolly the sheep was created by cloning in the mid-1990s, there was a lot of hysteria. People were afraid someone would start cloning people.</strong> <strong>Now it’s 20 years after Dolly and we haven’t seen any cloned people.</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Partly. That’s probably for many reasons, but partly it’s technical, quite honestly. I think cloning people turns out to be very hard. Even cloning more sheep like Dolly is not a trivial thing to do. It’s not something that very many people have access to the tools to do or the knowledge to do. And that’s where genome editing is a bit different. It’s a tool that is widely available. Scientists don’t need to be specialists, particularly, to be able to use it, and that’s one of the wonders of it. It’s a great democratizing tool that has given scientists around the globe the power to alter the code of life in different cellular settings, but it also means that it’s much harder to control it.</p> <p><strong>A patent’s supposed to give legal ownership to the discovery, isn’t it?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Well, what it does is it provides protection for the use of that idea or technology, so that companies — if they want to commercialize that technology, they have some protection to do so and to create things and products and charge money for them, without worrying about competitors immediately stealing their idea. That’s sort of the whole goal of the patenting process, is to give opportunities for companies, and for investors in those companies, to be able to trust that if they invest in a company, they can develop something without immediately having competitors able to capture all of that work and make money on it separately from them.</p> <p>So what’s happening right now with the CRISPR-Cas9 patent situation is that recently the University of California has had a whole series of our patents issuing, and we have quite a large number that are about to be issued. So that’s creating a situation where we now have patents at the University of California as well as patents at MIT Broad Institute, and frankly, many, many other institutions. So the U.S. Patent Office is going to have to again sort out what’s the primacy of those patents. And we expect that there will be another interference coming that will allow the Patent Office to ask that question in a legal sense.</p> <p><strong>What does “interference” mean, in a legal context?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Interference means that you have two patents that make the same claims, some kind of technologies or claims that are overlapping. So then there has to be a resolution of that. If that were to not happen, for some reason, then you have what we have today, which is that the University of California has issued patents, MIT Broad Institute has issued patents, and there’s some overlap in the claims of those patents. So anybody wanting to use this technology commercially needs to have a license to both parties’ patents. So it’s not ideal.</p> <p><strong>And billions of dollars are at stake.</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: I think that’s right. If you look at the market capitalization values of companies that are already traded in the public markets, they’re in the billions of dollars, collectively, and there are many, many more companies that are using the technology, as well as companies that are getting started that will build value over time.</p> <p><strong>How do you see it playing out?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: I think there are different scenarios for how it could play out. It’s not clear yet. I think, if this interference is declared, then that will provide a legal platform for figuring out, really, who invented this technology and who should have the primary patents to it. If that doesn’t happen, then it will be sorted out probably with lawsuits in the courts eventually.</p> <p><strong>Has the patent fight turned nastier than you thought?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Is the patent fight nastier than I thought? Yes. I think that’s been one of the worst parts of this whole experience for me, honestly. Yeah. I couldn’t have prepared for it, and I’ve tried to view it as part of my education. And sometimes education’s painful. Sometimes the way you learn things in life is through pain. This is one of them for me. It just is. But I try to view it as part of my education. It’s part about learning about people and their behavior, learning about the patenting process itself, and why do we do it, and how does it work. And in many ways, I feel it’s sort of broken, but this is the system that we have and we have to work with it. There also are occasional glimmers of light. I guess I was incredibly happy that my university has stuck up for me. They have. They could have let me just drift away. They could have just turned their back, and they didn’t, and that means a lot to me.</p> <p><strong>If you fixed or improved the patent system, what would you do?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Well, I would find a way to protect ideas in a way that would enable them more. I guess I’m particularly referring to technologies like CRISPR that are, frankly, so enabling to so many people that it’s actually not a good idea to squirrel them away. You really want to get them into as many people’s hands as possible and let them take over the creative process with that tool. Use the tool — whether it’s a hammer or a gene editing molecule — use it to do creative things. Build the house or build the cell and make those products. And to have a system that inhibits that somehow, with a foundational technology like that, it’s not a good idea.</p> <p>How would I do it differently? It’s very hard to say. How can I come up with a better system? I ask myself that occasionally, and I don’t have a good answer, but I do think that we do need to collectively come up with a system that will make technologies like this — and there are others, of course, and there will be ones in the future — make those widely available, so that they can be advanced as quickly as possible towards curing disease and doing all sorts of other things that are beneficial to people.</p> <p><strong>There’s all this competition involved in the patent process now, but didn’t your initial work on CRISPR-Cas9 stem from collaboration? Weren’t you working with scientists from another institution?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Oh, we always have. In fact, the foundational work that we did was done with Emmanuelle Charpentier, and the publication — the first publication about Cas9, and showing how it could be used as a genome editing technology, in 2012 —was published with her and her research lab. So that collaboration was foundational and fundamental, I would say, to developing this technology. But you’re right, we’ve also worked with many others in the field, men and women. I love that about science. I love working with other groups. It makes it fun.</p> <p><strong>You’ve already worked with two different people that have won the Nobel Prize. You’ve had great mentors. What’s it like, here at Berkeley, to hang out with a group of people who really think big and want to change what we know?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Oh, it’s incredible. It’s such a privilege to work with people like that, minds like that. That’s something I just love about science, thinking about big questions and trying to break them down into something you could eventually actually test in a laboratory. My graduate adviser’s question was, “What’s the origin of life?” It doesn’t get bigger than that, and yet he figured out how to do experiments that get at that question.</p> <p><strong>Now you’re running one of the most exciting labs in the world. We’re sitting here in this building and you have lots of people working in your lab, and it’s got computers and hot rooms and cold rooms. What’s it like to be in charge of all this brainpower?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Incredible. It’s very exciting. It’s a wonderful, wonderful job, a wonderful opportunity that I’ve had. I could never have imagined that my career would take me to where I am today. Honestly, I really never could have imagined it. I could not have planned for it, but here I am, and I feel so fortunate that I’m at one of the world’s best universities. I’m at a public university. We have people coming from all over the world, all kinds of backgrounds, that come to Berkeley because they love knowledge. They want to learn. They want to study. They want to do science. They want to understand the world better. It’s a privilege to work with them.</p> <p><strong>What’s most exciting about what you’re working on now?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Well, I’m most excited about two things: One is continuing to understand the fundamental basis for CRISPR-Cas 9 technology and how these molecules work. That’s what probably two-thirds of the people working in my research laboratory are doing, is mechanistic dissection of these systems, trying to understand how these molecules do what they do. How do they find and cut particular pieces of DNA or RNA in cells? How does that work?</p> <p>And the other thing that we’re doing is trying to figure out where this is all going in terms of, “How do we deliver these molecules into cells or tissues in a patient?” — for example — or even in a plant. And how do we ensure that when those molecules get into cells or tissues, they make the right kinds of DNA changes and not anything else?</p> <p><strong><em>TIME</em> magazine recently named you one of the 100 “Most Influential People” in the world. What did you think when you saw that?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: I had to pinch myself. It’s a wild thing. I have no idea if that’s really true, but I think it was an acknowledgment that the technology of genome editing is profound, and I think it will have a very broad impact across the planet going forward, and that this is really an important moment, not only for the science and the technology but also for the responsibility of it, thinking about how we use it ethically.</p> <p><strong>You have an unusual ability to explain very complicated things in a way people can understand. Have people told you that?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Well, thanks for saying that. I worked at it, and I’m still working at it. It’s important to me. I think that it’s very important for people to understand science and hopefully capture a little bit of the feeling of excitement that comes out of the research that happens in laboratories and how it affects our lives going forward. I think that’s critical.</p> <p><strong>As you see it, what are the rewards of a career in research? What motivates you?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Well, people always say, “If you want to make money, go do something else. Don’t do academic science.” It’s not totally true. I mean I’ve been fine. Even when I was a student, I was always able to save a little bit of money — put a little bit away. But I’ve always lived, you know, pretty modestly, I guess.</p> <p>I have to ask myself, “Why do I do what I do? Am I doing it to get rich? Am I doing it to be famous?” And the answer is “No. I’m not.” I’m doing it to make discoveries about the natural world. I’m doing it to satisfy my curiosity. If I’m ever doing it for any other reason, I should get out, I think.</p> <p><strong>You’ve won so many awards, and many people think you may soon receive a Nobel Prize. For you, what’s the best thing about these awards?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: I guess the best thing about them, for me, is that it’s a way of saying to students, and to our society, in general, that we value science and that we value scientists. I think that that’s one of the things that I’ve been sad about over my career, so far, is that I’ve seen kind of a growing distrust of science and scientists, and that makes me sad.</p> <p>I think that, for me, these prizes are a way of acknowledging the value that all of us get from science, the importance of making fundamental discoveries. And every now and then, as we just discussed, I think that for academic scientists, it’s a challenging job. We work very hard. We’re not paid like the CEOs of companies, by any stretch.</p> <p>I think you have to do this job because you love it. You love the science and you love the students. Every now and then, I think it’s nice that prizes are there to sort of say, “Hey, let’s step out of the lab for a minute and let’s just celebrate the fundamental joy of discovery and the power of science to advance our society.”</p> <p><strong>You’re young. So much of your career is still ahead of you. What’s next?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: What’s next? Gosh. I think what I love about science is I don’t know what’s next, in the broadest sense. What will I be working on five years from now? I literally don’t really know. I do think that we, collectively, are at a really interesting moment in biological research, where there is an integration of different technologies, including genome editing, but other kinds of things, too, including computation, artificial intelligence. There’s lots of interest in that kind of intersection. I think there’s a really exciting opportunity to steer that ship and bring those different kinds of technologies to bear on questions that I think are interesting. And I find that, you know, what are those questions?</p> <p>I’m certainly continually fascinated by what we — meaning me and my colleagues and collaborators — are finding about the way that microbial life populates the planet, all of the different kinds of genetic pathways that those microbes have. We know there will be new discoveries and technologies that will come from those microbes. I think that’s one of the things that we’re most excited about focusing on in the lab right now. The other thing is really trying to build the ways that CRISPR tools will be useful both in clinical medicine and in plants. And that really involves ensuring that these molecules can be delivered into cells efficiently, and when they get there, they make the right edit.</p> <p><strong>Are there other big questions you would love to answer in the decades to come?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: I guess one of the things that I wonder about is — it sort of gets back to the question of the nature of being human and the code of life. The code that we find in all human cells is mostly non-coding. We call it “non-coding DNA,” meaning that most of it doesn’t encode proteins.</p> <p>In fact, one of the surprises, when the human genome was first sequenced, was how few genes we find in the human genome. Yet there is an incredible complexity to making a human being and all that we associate with that. So one of the questions that I would love to answer — I don’t know if I ever will — but I’d love to know what’s essential in human DNA. What parts of it really are critical for the development of a human being?</p> <p>And that will be hard to answer, but I think one could certainly imagine doing experiments where you figure out what subset of DNA in a human cell is necessary to make a certain kind of cell, like a liver cell or a brain cell or a lung cell. And also, what are all the other molecules that you need, besides proteins, to do that? I love RNA. So I always want to know what RNA is doing in cells. I think, when I imagine what will I do when I’m sort of a certain age, whatever that age is, and maybe I’m an emeritus professor, and I have a little research operation going on — what would I do? — and that’s the kind of thing I’d like to go after, just sort of pie-in-the-sky questions like that.</p> <p><strong>Why?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Because fundamentally, I’m fascinated by what makes us human. I think it’s so interesting to think about that from a chemical sense. What’s the chemistry of that, and how do we even ask that question in an experimental setting? I think that would be a great challenge.</p> <p><strong>Have your parents lived to see your achievements?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: My parents have both died, sadly. My father passed away in 1995, so he never knew about this. My mother passed away a year ago, but she has been in a state where she didn’t really know what was going on for a number of years. So she really did not ever know about CRISPR, either. So sadly, neither of my parents knew about it.</p> <p>However, I kind of feel like they knew me, and they knew my passion for science. I don’t think — at some level, they might be surprised or whatever about the details of all of this, but I don’t think, knowing me, that they would be surprised that I embraced the opportunity that came my way with this technology — that there was an opportunity to be involved in the discussion about responsible use, to be involved in doing podcasts like this to help teach kids about science and why we do it, and why it’s fun, and those sorts of things. So I don’t think any of that would surprise them.</p> <p><strong>What is it about the process of research and experimentation that is a thrill for you? Is it the journey?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: It’s the journey. Absolutely. I’ve always found — and this is true of anything in life, for me, whether I’m on a hike or I’m working in the lab — it’s the journey that’s the fun part. It’s not necessarily getting to the answer or getting to the end of the trail. It’s more the process of doing that that’s fun. It’s the steps along the way, and the things that you figure out, that make it so interesting, things that you couldn’t expect, couldn’t anticipate.</p> <p><strong>When you have success in the lab, you’ve described it as the feeling of being in a great suspense novel.</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Oh, absolutely. It’s the feeling that you’re onto something. It’s probably the feeling that Sherlock Holmes had when he was following clues and trying to figure out a mystery. It’s that kind of feeling that you’re gathering the information to try to solve this mystery or answer this question that you desperately want to answer.</p> <p><strong>What are you most proud of when you look at your work?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: Oh, hands down, I’m most proud of the people that I’ve trained and the people that have come from my work — I mean from my lab. I think that when I look at these younger people who are now working in their own right, running research laboratories, doing great work, teaching their students, making new discoveries, that’s what I’m proudest of. That legacy of science that stemmed from — originally — just me opening up my shop at Yale University back in 1994.</p> <p><strong>When you look back at the road you’ve traveled, from being a little girl in Hawaii to your lab here, how do you see it? Are you surprised? Do you have time to think about it?</strong></p> <p>Jennifer Doudna: I think about it occasionally. For me, I sort of feel that when I look at my life, there’s sort of my life before CRISPR and after. Before and after, because there was a profound change that happened for me right after the publication of our paper in 2012. I could see it coming then, and looking back on it, I can see even more retrospectively this huge wave of stuff that came to me. Whether it was — everything — the science, the patent fight, the companies that got founded, and learning about all of that, learning how to talk about our science in a way that was more accessible to people who were outside of science.</p> <p>All of that has sort of happened since then. I feel so grateful. I guess that’s the thing I feel the most, is gratitude that I would be involved in this and be part of it and have these opportunities. I think of myself as a perpetual student, really. I’m a student. I’m always learning, and these are all areas where I’ve had just enormous opportunities to learn things that I would have never learned or been exposed to otherwise. So it’s been amazing.</p> <p><strong>Well, it’s been amazing talking to you. Thank you.</strong></p> </div>  </aside>  <div class="read-more__toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#full-interview"><a href="#" class="sans-4 btn">Read full interview</a></div> </article> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="gallery" role="tabpanel"> <section class="isotope-wrapper">  <header class="toolbar toolbar--gallery bg-white clearfix"> <div class="col-md-6"> <div class="serif-4">Jennifer A. Doudna, Ph.D. Gallery</div> </div> <div class="col-md-6 text-md-right isotope-toolbar"> <ul class="list-unstyled list-inline m-b-0 text-brand-primary sans-4"> <li class="list-inline-item" data-filter=".photo"><i class="icon-icon_camera"></i>16 photos</li> </ul> </div> </header> <div class="isotope-gallery isotope-box single-achiever__gallery clearfix"> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.0228802153432" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-doudna-molecule-lab.jpg" data-image-caption="Jennifer Doudna has taken a lead role in the science behind CRISPR and in the ethical discussion that has ensued." data-image-copyright="wp-doudna-molecule-lab" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-doudna-molecule-lab-371x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-doudna-molecule-lab-743x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.25" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp2-LondonSummit_0674.jpg" data-image-caption="Awards Council member Lord Jacob Rothschild presents the Academy of Achievement’s Golden Plate Award to Dr. Jennifer Doudna, co-developer of the CRISPR gene editing technology, in a gala ceremony at Claridge’s in London. (© Academy of Achievement) " data-image-copyright="wp2-LondonSummit_0674" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp2-LondonSummit_0674-304x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp2-LondonSummit_0674-608x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-LondonSummit_0450.jpg" data-image-caption="2017: Guest of honor Jennifer A. Doudna addresses delegates and members at a symposium during the American Academy of Achievement’s 52nd annual International Achievement Summit at Claridge’s Hotel in Mayfair, London. (© Academy of Achievement) " data-image-copyright="wp-2280-LondonSummit_0450" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-LondonSummit_0450-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-LondonSummit_0450-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5169660678643" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2017-A-Crack-in-Creation.jpg" data-image-caption="2017: A CRACK IN CREATION: GENE EDITING AND THE UNTHINKABLE POWER TO CONTROL EVOLUTION by Jennifer A. Doudna and Samuel H. Sternberg. Writing with fellow researcher Samuel Sternberg, Doudna shares the thrilling story of her discovery, and passionately argues that enormous responsibility comes with the ability to rewrite the code of life." data-image-copyright="2017- A Crack in Creation" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2017-A-Crack-in-Creation-251x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2017-A-Crack-in-Creation-501x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-LondonSummit_0447.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Jennifer A. Doudna explains the work that led to the development of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology — which was described in the journal SCIENCE in 2012 — during a symposium at the 2017 International Achievement Summit. (© Academy of Achievement) " data-image-copyright="wp-2280-LondonSummit_0447" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-LondonSummit_0447-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-LondonSummit_0447-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3333333333333" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-Jennifer-Doudna-Jussi-Puikonen-ORIGINEEL-3.jpg" data-image-caption="Jennifer A. Doudna grew up in Hilo, a small town in Hawaii. Her father, a literature professor at the University of Hawaii, loved reading popular books about science and gave her Jim Watson’s THE DOUBLE HELIX. (Jussi Puikkonen)" data-image-copyright="wp-Jennifer-Doudna-Jussi-Puikonen-ORIGINEEL -3" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-Jennifer-Doudna-Jussi-Puikonen-ORIGINEEL-3-285x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-Jennifer-Doudna-Jussi-Puikonen-ORIGINEEL-3-570x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2014-AP_260728901425.jpg" data-image-caption="2014: Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences laureates Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna arrive at the 2nd Annual Breakthrough Prize Award Ceremony at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. (AP)" data-image-copyright="Emmanuelle Charpentier, Jennifer A. Doudna" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2014-AP_260728901425-380x254.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2014-AP_260728901425-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.75" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2012-Doudna-photo1.jpg" data-image-caption="2012: (left to right) Emmanuelle Charpentier, Jennifer Doudna, Martin Jinek, Krzysztof Chylinski and Ines Fonfara. This international “Cas9” team discovered a programmable RNA structure for cutting DNA at specific sequences." data-image-copyright="2012-Doudna-photo1" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2012-Doudna-photo1-380x285.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2012-Doudna-photo1-760x570.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-Doudna_Jennifer-LabPhoto.jpg" data-image-caption="Professor Jennifer Doudna in her lab at UC Berkeley. Doudna and her colleagues rocked the research world in 2012 by describing a simple way of editing the DNA of any organism using an RNA-guided protein found in bacteria. This technology, called CRISPR-Cas9, has opened the floodgates of possibility for human and non-human applications of gene editing, including assisting researchers in the fight against HIV, sickle cell disease, and muscular dystrophy." data-image-copyright="wp-2280-Doudna_Jennifer-LabPhoto" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-Doudna_Jennifer-LabPhoto-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-Doudna_Jennifer-LabPhoto-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4990138067061" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2016-GettyImages-517321960.jpg" data-image-caption="March 2016: Jennifer Doudna speaks at the “L’Oreal-UNESCO Awards 2016 for Women in Science International,” hosted by Fondation l’Oreal at Maison de la Mutualite in Paris, France. (Photo by Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty)" data-image-copyright="For Women In Science International Awards 2016 Edition - A Ceremony Hosted by Fondation L'Oreal" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2016-GettyImages-517321960-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2016-GettyImages-517321960-507x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4339622641509" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2016-GettyImages-496364032.jpg" data-image-caption="November 8, 2015: Jennifer Doudna and her husband, Jamie H. D. Cate, a UC Berkeley professor of biochemistry, molecular biology, and chemistry, attend the Breakthrough Prize ceremony in Mountain View, California. (Getty)" data-image-copyright="wp-2015-GettyImages-496364032" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2016-GettyImages-496364032-265x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2016-GettyImages-496364032-530x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2018-kavli-prize-wp-2280-236te_2018_kavli-2986.jpg" data-image-caption="The 2018 Kavli Prize laureates with H.M. King Harald (left to right): Virginijus Šikšnys, Jennifer A. Doudna, Albert James Hudspeth, Ewine van Dishoeck, Robert Fettiplace, Emmanuelle Charpentier, and Christine Petit. (T. Eckhoff)" data-image-copyright="2018-kavli-prize-wp-2280-236te_2018_kavli-2986" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2018-kavli-prize-wp-2280-236te_2018_kavli-2986-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2018-kavli-prize-wp-2280-236te_2018_kavli-2986-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3333333333333" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2-Jennifer-Doudna-and-Frances-Arnold-Einstein-Washington-DC.jpg" data-image-caption="2019: Two members of the American Academy of Achievement, Dr. Frances Arnold, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and Dr. Jennifer Doudna, at National Academy of Sciences Albert Einstein Memorial in Washington, D.C." data-image-copyright="wp-2- Jennifer Doudna and Frances Arnold - Einstein - Washington DC" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2-Jennifer-Doudna-and-Frances-Arnold-Einstein-Washington-DC-285x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2-Jennifer-Doudna-and-Frances-Arnold-Einstein-Washington-DC-570x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4022140221402" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2017-Japan-Prize-Foundation.jpg" data-image-caption="April 19, 2017: Dr. Jennifer A. Doudna receives the Japan Prize during a ceremony at the National Theatre of Japan. The Japan Prize is awarded to scientists and researchers who have made significant contributions to the progress of science and technology, and society, to further the peace and prosperity of mankind. (Japan Prize Foundation)" data-image-copyright="2017 - Japan Prize Foundation" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2017-Japan-Prize-Foundation-271x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2017-Japan-Prize-Foundation-542x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.75" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna-Photo-Credit-Brad-Torchia.jpg" data-image-caption="Jennifer A. Doudna, Professor of Chemistry and Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, using a combination of cryo-electron microscopy (Cryo-EM) and 3D image reconstruction. (Photo: Brad Torchia)" data-image-copyright="PHOTOGRAPHS BRAD TORCHIA" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna-Photo-Credit-Brad-Torchia-380x285.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Doudna-Photo-Credit-Brad-Torchia-760x570.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.35" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-Doudna_CRISPR_Model.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Jennifer A. Doudna holds a model of the CRISPR-Cas9 protein (white) interacting with DNA (orange and blue). On May 28, 2019, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today issued a patent to the University of California (UC), the University of Vienna, and French biologist Emmanuelle Charpentier that covers methods of modulating DNA transcription using the CRISPR-Cas9 system. (Jana Ašenbrennerová for Quanta Magazine/Drew Kelley for WSJ)" data-image-copyright="wp-2280-Doudna_CRISPR_Model" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-Doudna_CRISPR_Model-380x133.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wp-2280-Doudna_CRISPR_Model-760x266.jpg"></div>  </figure>    </div> </section> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <footer class="editorial-article__footer col-md-8 col-md-offset-4"> <div class="editorial-article__next-link sans-3"> <a href="#"><strong>What's next:</strong> <span class="editorial-article__next-link-title">profile</span></a> </div> <ul class="social list-unstyled list-inline ssk-group m-b-0"> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-facebook" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Facebook"><i class="icon-icon_facebook-circle"></i></a></li> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-twitter" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Twitter"><i class="icon-icon_twitter-circle"></i></a></li>  <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-email" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever via Email"><i class="icon-icon_email-circle"></i></a></li> </ul> <time class="editorial-article__last-updated sans-6">This page last revised on September 1, 2020</time> <div class="sans-4"><a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/how-to-cite" target="_blank">How to cite this page</a></div> </footer> </div> <div class="container interview-related-achievers"> <hr class="m-t-3 m-b-3"/> <footer class="clearfix small-blocks text-xs-center"> <h3 class="m-b-3 serif-3">If you are inspired by this achiever’s story, you might also enjoy:</h3> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever science-exploration science-exploration science-exploration analytical curious resourceful build-or-create-things help-mankind play-music start-a-business " data-year-inducted="2014" data-achiever-name="Arnold"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/frances-h-arnold-ph-d/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/arnold_760_ac-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/arnold_760_ac-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Frances H. Arnold, Ph.D.</div> <div class="achiever-block__known-as text-white sans-6">Nobel Prize in Chemistry</div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="text-white achiever-block__text--bottom"> <div class="achiever-block__year sans-4">Inducted in <span class="year-inducted">2014</span></div> </div> </figcaption> </figure> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever science-exploration analytical curious help-mankind racism-discrimination " data-year-inducted="1989" data-achiever-name="Elion"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/gertrude-elion/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/elion_760_ac-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/elion_760_ac-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Gertrude B. Elion, M.Sc.</div> <div class="achiever-block__known-as text-white sans-6">Nobel Prize in Medicine</div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="text-white achiever-block__text--bottom"> <div class="achiever-block__year sans-4">Inducted in <span class="year-inducted">1989</span></div> </div> </figcaption> </figure> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever science-exploration resourceful curious difficulty-with-school " data-year-inducted="2000" data-achiever-name="Greider"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/carol-greider-ph-d/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/greider-760_ac-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/06/greider-760_ac-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Carol W. Greider, Ph.D.</div> <div class="achiever-block__known-as text-white sans-6">Nobel Prize in Medicine</div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="text-white achiever-block__text--bottom"> <div class="achiever-block__year sans-4">Inducted in <span class="year-inducted">2000</span></div> </div> </figcaption> </figure> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever science-exploration science-exploration analytical curious shy-introverted work-in-medicine help-mankind " data-year-inducted="1976" data-achiever-name="Salk"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/jonas-salk-m-d/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/salk-760_ac-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/02/salk-760_ac-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Jonas Salk, M.D.</div> <div class="achiever-block__known-as text-white sans-6">Developer of the Polio Vaccine</div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="text-white achiever-block__text--bottom"> <div class="achiever-block__year sans-4">Inducted in <span class="year-inducted">1976</span></div> </div> </figcaption> </figure> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever science-exploration analytical curious teach-others help-mankind " data-year-inducted="2000" data-achiever-name="Sanger"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/frederick-sanger-ph-d/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/sanger-001a-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/12/sanger-001a-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Frederick Sanger, Ph.D.</div> <div class="achiever-block__known-as text-white sans-6">Two Nobel Prizes in Chemistry</div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="text-white achiever-block__text--bottom"> <div class="achiever-block__year sans-4">Inducted in <span class="year-inducted">2000</span></div> </div> </figcaption> </figure> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever science-exploration ambitious analytical curious write explore-nature help-mankind " data-year-inducted="1986" data-achiever-name="Watson"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-d-watson/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/watson_760_ac-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/watson_760_ac-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">James D. Watson, Ph.D.</div> <div class="achiever-block__known-as text-white sans-6">Discoverer of the DNA Molecule</div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="text-white achiever-block__text--bottom"> <div class="achiever-block__year sans-4">Inducted in <span class="year-inducted">1986</span></div> </div> </figcaption> </figure> </a> </div> </div> </div> </footer> </div> </div> </article> <div class="modal image-modal" id="imageModal" tabindex="-1" role="dialog" aria-labelledby="imageModal" aria-hidden="true"> <div class="close-container"> <div class="close icon-icon_x" data-dismiss="modal" aria-label="Close"></div> </div> <div class="modal-dialog" role="document"> <div class="modal-content"> <div class="modal-body"> <figure class="image-modal__container"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <img class="image-modal__image" src="/web/20200917235233im_/https://achievement.org/achiever/jennifer-a-doudna-ph-d/" alt=""/>  <figcaption class="p-t-2 container"> <div class="image-modal__caption sans-2 text-white"></div>  </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </div> </div> </div> </div> </main> </div> </div> <footer class="content-info main-footer bg-black"> <div class="container"> <div class="find-achiever" id="find-achiever-list"> <div class="form-group"> <input id="find-achiever-input" class="search js-focus" placeholder="Search for an achiever"/> <i class="icon-icon_chevron-down"></i> </div> <ul class="find-achiever-list list m-b-0 list-unstyled"> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/hank-aaron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Hank Aaron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/kareem-abdul-jabbar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Kareem Abdul-Jabbar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/lynsey-addario/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lynsey Addario</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/edward-albee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Edward Albee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/tenley-albright-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tenley Albright, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/svetlana-alexievich/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Svetlana Alexievich</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/julie-andrews/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Julie Andrews</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/maya-angelou/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Angelou</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/frances-h-arnold-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frances H. 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Carson, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-carter/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Carter</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/johnny-cash/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Cash</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/william-j-clinton/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William J. Clinton</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/francis-s-collins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/denton-a-cooley/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Denton A. Cooley, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/francis-ford-coppola/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Francis Ford Coppola</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/ray-dalio/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Dalio</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/olivia-de-havilland/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Olivia de Havilland</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/michael-e-debakey-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Michael E. DeBakey, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/michael-dell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Michael S. Dell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/ron-dennis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Dennis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/joan-didion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joan Didion</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-herbert-donald-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Herbert Donald, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-doubilet/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Doubilet</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/jennifer-a-doudna-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jennifer A. Doudna, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/rita-dove/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rita Dove</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/sylvia-earle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sylvia Earle, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/elbaradei/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mohamed ElBaradei</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/gertrude-elion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Gertrude B. Elion, M.Sc.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/larry-j-ellison/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry J. Ellison</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/nora-ephron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nora Ephron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/julius-erving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Julius Erving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/tony-fadell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tony Fadell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-farmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Farmer, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/suzanne-farrell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzanne Farrell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-s-fauci-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/sally-field/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally Field</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/lord-norman-foster/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Norman Foster</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/aretha-franklin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Aretha Franklin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/milton-friedman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Milton Friedman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-fuentes/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Fuentes</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/athol-fugard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Athol Fugard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/peter-gabriel/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peter Gabriel</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernest-j-gaines/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernest J. Gaines</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/william-h-gates-iii/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William H. Gates III</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/leymah-gbowee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leymah Gbowee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-gehry/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank O. Gehry</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/murray-gell-mann-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Murray Gell-Mann, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-ghosn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Ghosn</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Vince Gill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/ruth-bader-ginsburg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ruth Bader Ginsburg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/louise-gluck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louise Glück</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/whoopi-goldberg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Whoopi Goldberg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/jane-goodall/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Jane Goodall</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/doris-kearns-goodwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/mikhail-s-gorbachev/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mikhail S. Gorbachev</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/nadine-gordimer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nadine Gordimer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-jay-gould/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/carol-greider-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol W. Greider, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-grisham/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Grisham</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-john-gurdon/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir John Gurdon</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/dorothy-hamill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dorothy Hamill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/demis-hassabis-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Demis Hassabis, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/lauryn-hill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lauryn Hill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-edmund-hillary/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Edmund Hillary</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/reid-hoffman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reid Hoffman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/khaled-hosseini/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Khaled Hosseini, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/ron-howard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Howard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-hume/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Hume</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/louis-ignarro-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louis Ignarro, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/daniel-inouye/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Daniel K. Inouye</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/jeremy-irons/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeremy Irons</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Irving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/kazuo-ishiguro/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Kazuo Ishiguro</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-peter-jackson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Peter Jackson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-m-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank M. Johnson, Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/philip-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Philip C. Johnson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/chuck-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Chuck Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-earl-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Earl Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/quincy-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Quincy Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/beverly-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Beverly Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/dereck-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dereck Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-kagame/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Kagame</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/thomas-keller-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Thomas Keller</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-m-kennedy/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony M. Kennedy</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/carole-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carole King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/b-b-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">B.B. King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/coretta-scott-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Coretta Scott King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-kissinger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/wendy-kopp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wendy Kopp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-r-kravis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry R. Kravis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/nicholas-d-kristof/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nicholas D. Kristof</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/mike-krzyzewski/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mike Krzyzewski</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/ray-kurzwell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Kurzweil</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/eric-lander-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Eric S. Lander, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-s-langer-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/richard-leakey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard E. Leakey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-lederman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Lederman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Congressman John R. Lewis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/maya-lin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Lin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George Lucas</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-b-maccready-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul B. MacCready, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/norman-mailer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman Mailer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/peyton-manning/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peyton Manning</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/wynton-marsalis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wynton Marsalis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John C. Mather, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/johnny-mathis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Mathis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernst-mayr-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernst Mayr, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/willie-mays/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willie Mays</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-mccourt/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank McCourt</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-mccullough/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David McCullough</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/audra-mcdonald/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Audra McDonald</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral William H. McRaven, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/w-s-merwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">W. S. Merwin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/reinhold-messner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reinhold Messner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-a-michener/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James A. Michener</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/marvin-minsky-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Marvin Minsky, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/n-scott-momaday-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/story-musgrave/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Story Musgrave, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/ralph-nader/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ralph Nader</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/peggy-noonan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peggy Noonan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/jessye-norman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jessye Norman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/tommy-norris/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Thomas R. Norris, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/joyce-carol-oates/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joyce Carol Oates</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/pierre-omidyar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pierre Omidyar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/larry-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/arnold-palmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Arnold Palmer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-panetta/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Panetta</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/rosa-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rosa Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/suzan-lori-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzan-Lori Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/shimon-peres/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shimon Peres</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/itzhak-perlman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Itzhak Perlman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-david-petraeus/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General David H. Petraeus, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/sidney-poitier/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sidney Poitier</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-colin-l-powell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Colin L. Powell, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/harold-prince/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Harold Prince</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/venki-ramakrishnan-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Venki Ramakrishnan, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/lord-martin-rees/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Martin Rees</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/lloyd-richards/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lloyd Richards</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/sally-ride-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally K. Ride, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/sonny-rollins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonny Rollins</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-romero/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony D. Romero</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-rosenquist/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Rosenquist</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/pete-rozelle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pete Rozelle</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/bill-russell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Bill Russell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/albie-sachs/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Albie Sachs</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/oliver-sacks-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Oliver Sacks, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/jonas-salk-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jonas Salk, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/frederick-sanger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick Sanger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-b-schaller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George B. Schaller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/barry-scheck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Barry Scheck</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/richard-evans-schultes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard Evans Schultes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-h-norman-schwarzkopf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-schwarzman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen A. Schwarzman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/glenn-t-seaborg-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Glenn T. Seaborg, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/neil-sheehan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Neil Sheehan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-alan-shepard-jr/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral Alan B. Shepard, Jr., USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/ellen-johnson-sirleaf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ellen Johnson Sirleaf</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-slim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Slim Helú</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/frederick-w-smith/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick W. Smith</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-sondheim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Sondheim</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/sonia-sotomayor/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonia Sotomayor</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/wole-soyinka/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wole Soyinka</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/esperanza-spalding/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Esperanza Spalding</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/martha-stewart/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Martha Stewart</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-james-b-stockdale/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral James B. Stockdale, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/hilary-swank/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Hilary Swank</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/amy-tan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Amy Tan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/dame-kiri-te-kanawa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Kiri Te Kanawa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/edward-teller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Edward Teller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/twyla-tharp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Twyla Tharp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/wayne-thiebaud/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wayne Thiebaud</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/lt-michael-e-thornton-usn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Michael E. Thornton, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/clyde-tombaugh/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Clyde Tombaugh</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235233/https://achievement.org/achiever/charles-h-townes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Charles H. 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