The CRISPR/Cas9 Revolution and Gene Editing

Rodolphe Barrangou is an Associate Professor in the Department of Food, Bioprocessing and Nutrition Sciences at North Carolina State University, a NC State University Scholar, and the Todd R. Klaenhammer Distinguished Scholar in Probiotics Research. Dr. Barrangou is also an associate member of the Microbiology graduate program, the Biotechnology graduate program, the Functional Genomics graduate program, and the Center for Integrative Medicine. Dr. Barrangou is also an adjunct member of the Food Science Department at the Pennsylvania State University.

His CRISPR laboratory focuses on the evolution and functions of CRISPR-Cas systems, and their use for bacterial genotyping, building prokaryotic immunity, and Cas9-mediated genome editing in lactic acid bacteria used in food manufacturing.

Dr. Barrangou earned a BS in Biological Sciences from the Rene Descartes University in Paris, France; a MS in Biological Engineering from the University of Technology in Compiegne, France; a MS in Food Science from NC State University; a PhD in Genomics from NC State University; and a MBA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Barrangou and colleagues at DuPont established the biological role of CRISPR-Cas systems in adaptive immunity in bacteria, and used CRISPR-based technologies for bacterial genotyping of industrial cultures, and for the vaccination of dairy cultures against bacteriophages. After nine years in R&D and M&A at Danisco and DuPont, he joined the faculty at NC State University in 2013.

Dr. Barrangou is the recipient of the 2014 NC State Alumni Association Outstanding Research Award, and of the 2015 NC State Faculty Scholars Award. He has been on the Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researchers list in 2014 and 2015. Dr. Barrangou is on the board of directors of Caribou Biosciences, a co-founder and member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Intellia Therapeutics, and a founding investor of Locus Biosciences.

Dr. Barrangou has published numerous articles on CRISPR-Cas systems and their use since 2005, including establishing their role as bacterial immune systems, and exploiting them for industrial applications. Following the initial work unraveling the biological function of CRISPR arrays and cas genes, subsequent studies and collaborative efforts identified PAMs as critical sequences for phage DNA targeting, showed that Cas9 is an endonuclease which can cleave plasmid and phage DNA, and provided the first proof of concept that CRISPR can be reprogrammed and transferred heterologously. Dr. Barrangou also established and co-hosted five international CRISPR meetings, and edited the first book on CRISPR-Cas systems.

Emmanuelle Charpentier studied biochemistry, microbiology and genetics at the University Pierre and Marie Curie, Paris, France and obtained her PhD in Microbiology for her research performed at the Pasteur Institute. She then continued her work in the United States, at The Rockefeller University, New York University Langone Medical Center and the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine (all in New York, NY) and at St Jude Children's Research Hospital (in Memphis, TN). E. Charpentier returned to Europe to establish her own research group at the Max F. Perutz Laboratories of the University of Vienna in Austria where she habilitated in the field of Microbiology. She was then appointed Associate Professor at the Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (MIMS, part of Nordic European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) Partnership for Molecular Medicine) at Umeå University in Sweden where she habilitated in the field of Medical Microbiology and is still active as a Visiting Professor. Between 2013 and 2015, E. Charpentier was Head of the Department of Regulation in Infection Biology at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Braunschweig, and Professor at the Medical School of Hannover in Germany. In 2013, she was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship, which she has held since 2014. In 2015, E. Charpentier was appointed Scientific Member of the Max Planck Society in Germany and Director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, Germany.

E. Charpentier is recognized as a world-leading expert in regulatory mechanisms underlying processes of infection and immunity in bacterial pathogens. Her work has led to a number of seminal discoveries and insights into pathways governing antibiotic resistance and virulence of bacterial pathogens. With her recent groundbreaking findings in the field of RNA-mediated regulation based on the CRISPR-Cas9 system, E. Charpentier has laid the foundation for the development of a novel, highly versatile and specific genome editing technology that is revolutionizing life sciences research and could open up whole new opportunities in biomedical gene therapies. The resulting field of research is now developing at dazzling speed, with exciting new aspects emerging almost weekly. E. Charpentier is Elected Foreign Member of The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 2015, Elected Member German National Academy of Sciences 2015, Elected Member of the European Academy of Microbiology 2015, Elected Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in 2015 and Elected EMBO Member in 2014. E. Charpentier has been awarded prestigious honors including the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize 2016, French Chevalier Order de la Légion d’Honneur in 2016, World Technology Award for Biotechnology 2015, Leibniz Prize 2016, a 2016 Vallee Visiting Professorship, the 2016 HFSP Nakasone Award, an Honorary Doctorate of the KU Leuven, the Science Award of Lower Saxony 2015, the ABRF Annual Award for Outstanding Contributions to Biomolecular Technologies 2016, the Massry Prize 2015, the Otto Warburg Medal 2016, the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Award 2016, the Carus-Medal of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina 2015, the Umeå University EC Jubilee Award in 2015, the Gruber Prize in Genetics 2015, the Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research 2015, the 11th International Society for Transgenic Technologies Prize, the Hansen Family Award 2015, the 2015 Louis Jeantet Prize for Medicine, the 2015 Ernst Jung Prize for Medicine, the 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the 2014 Grand Prix Jean-Pierre LeCocq, the 2014 Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine, the 2014 Dr Paul Janssen Award, the 2014 Göran Gustafsson Prize, an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship in 2013 and the Eric K. Fernström Prize in 2011. The impact of her scientific accomplishments has also been recognized in the broader community of world affairs. E. Charpentier was selected as one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2015, one of Foreign Policy’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers in 2014, one of Vanity Fair’s 50 most influential French people worldwide in 2014.

E. Charpentier is inventor and co-owner of seminal intellectual property comprising the CRISPR-Cas9 technology, and co-founder of CRISPR Therapeutics and ERS Genomics, created to facilitate the development of the CRISPR-Cas9 genome engineering technology for biotechnological and biomedical purposes.

(2016-03-06) picture: “Hallbauer&Fioretti”

Jennifer Doudna is the Li Ka Shing Chancellor’s Chair in Biomedical and Health Sciences and she is Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology and Professor of Chemistry at UC Berkeley and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.  Prof. Doudna’s research seeks to understand how RNA molecules control the expression of genetic information. Her research led to insights about CRISPR-Cas9-mediated bacterial immunity that enabled her lab and that of collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier to re-design this system for efficient genome engineering in animals and plants, creating a transformative technology that is revolutionizing the fields of genetics, molecular biology and medicine. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Inventors. She is a recipient of awards including the NSF Waterman Award, the FNIH Lurie Prize, the Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research, the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the Princess of Asturias Award (Spain), the Gruber Prize in Genetics, the Massry Prize and the L’Oreal-UNESCO International Prize for Women in Science.

Philippe Horvath is a senior scientist at DuPont.  He graduated from Université Louis-Pasteur, Strasbourg, France in 1996 and obtained his Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology in 2000. That same year, he was recruited by Rhodia Food and worked at the R&D center in Dangé-Saint-Romain, France, where he contributed to the development of molecular biology tools for bacterial strain screening, microbial identification, and typing of lactic acid bacteria and their bacteriophages.

Philippe became senior scientist in 2006, two years after Rhodia Food was acquired by the Danish company Danisco, a world leader in specialty food ingredients. In 2014, three years after DuPont acquired Danisco, Philippe was appointed Associate to the DuPont Fellows Forum, and further appointed DuPont Nutrition & Health Technical Fellow in 2015.

Since late 2002, a large part of Philippe’s research activities has been dedicated to CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats), first as a polymorphic chromosomal region useful for strain differentiation and tracking, and then as a bacterial immune system with considerable industrial, biotechnological, and medical applications. Philippe is co-inventor of 95 patents and/or patent applications, of which 62 are related to various uses of CRISPR, and co-author of 31 peer-reviewed articles (22 about CRISPR) and 4 book chapters. Together with other scientists in the company, Philippe was recognized with the 2008 Danisco Innovation Award, and with the 2013 Bolton/Carothers Innovative Science Award. In addition to being selected as a 2015 Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher, Philippe was awarded with the 2015 Massry Prize.