Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on CRISPR, a method for editing genes.
They discovered one of gene technology's sharpest tools: the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors. Using these, researchers can change the DNA of animals, plants and micro-organisms with extremely high precision.Before announcing the winners on Wednesday, Göran K. Hansson, secretary-general for the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said that this year's prize was about "rewriting the code of life."