Emmanuelle Charpentier, PhD, is founding, scientific and managing director of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens and honorary professor at Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.  

Prior to her current appointments, she was scientific director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Berlin; Alexander von Humboldt professor, department head at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Braunschweig, and professor at the Hannover Medical School, Germany; visiting and associate professor at the Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (EMBL Partnership), Umeå University, Sweden; assistant and associate professor at the Max Perutz Labs, University of Vienna, Austria. Emmanuelle held several research associate positions in the US: The Rockefeller University, New York University Medical Center and Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine, New York, and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis.  

She received her education in microbiology, biochemistry and genetics from the University Pierre and Marie Curie and the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France. Emmanuelle has been widely recognised for her innovative research that laid the foundation for the ground-breaking CRISPR-Cas9 genome engineering technology. She has received numerous prestigious international awards and distinctions, including the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and is an elected member of national and international scientific academies. She is co-founder of CRISPR Therapeutics and ERS Genomics together with Rodger Novak and Shaun Foy.  

More about Emmanuelle Charpentier and the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

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