Pauli Lectures 2023

This powerful technology enables scientists to change DNA — the code of life — with a precision only dreamed of just a few years ago. Labs worldwide have re-​directed the course of their research programs to incorporate this new tool, creating a CRISPR revolution with huge implications across biology and medicine.

In addition to her scientific achievements, Doudna is a leader in public discussion of the ethical implications of genome editing for human biology and societies, and advocates for thoughtful approaches to the development of policies around the safe use of CRISPR technology.

Doudna is an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, senior investigator at Gladstone Institutes, and the founder of the Innovative Genomics Institute. She co-​founded and serves on the advisory panel of several companies that use CRISPR technology in unique ways.

She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Inventors, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Doudna is also a Foreign Member of the Royal Society, a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and has received numerous other honors including the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences (2015), the Japan Prize (2016), Kavli Prize (2018), the LUI Che Woo Welfare Betterment Prize (2019), and the Wolf Prize in Medicine (2020). Doudna’s work led TIME to recognize her as one of the “100 Most Influential People” in 2015 and a runner-​up for “Person of the Year” in 2016. She is the co-​author of “A Crack in Creation,” a personal account of her research and the societal and ethical implications of gene editing.

This talk will introduce CRISPR technology and discuss its origins as part of bacterial adaptive immunity and current applications in health and agriculture.

This talk will discuss current applications of CRISPR for both research and medicine, and well as challenges and opportunities in the field of genome editing.

This talk will discuss current research to determine how RNA-​guided enzymes function in cells and how these activities have evolved across the tree of life.