Emmanuelle Charpentier - co-discoverer of "enzyme scissors"
August 26, 2016
Together with an American colleague, French microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier has developed a kind of "enzyme scissors" for altering DNA easily, quickly and precisely. The discovery heralded in a new era in biology. CRISPR-Cas9, as the method is known, could be instrumental in curing genetic diseases. In the past two years alone, Charpentier has received almost 20 major scientific awards. Is she a contender for this year's Nobel Prize? TOMORROW TODAY met up with Charpentier, who's now a director at Berlin's Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology.