In agriculture, it's really exciting. There [are] so many opportunities with genome editing to do not only fundamental research, which is, frankly, well behind where we are with understanding human or mammalian systems, but looking at fundamental aspects of plant genetics that have not really been accessible due to a lack of tools in the past. Zach Lippman, who's here [at CSHL], is one of the people really driving a lot of that, as I'm sure you know, and I'm a great admirer of him and his work. I think he exemplifies what I think will be possible in the future with research, [which] is to really dig into the genetics of plant biology in a way that has not been possible previously and then to take those discoveries and use them in very particular applications. Whether it's increasing crop yields, whether it's making plants that are drought-resistant or have other properties that help them deal with the changes coming with climate change, whether it's making plants that are able to adapt to different environments more easily or require fewer fertilizers or pesticides – these are all things that I think are very, very achievable using CRISPR so I'm really bullish on the future with agriculture and CRISPR.

Dr. Jennifer Doudna is a biochemist and 2020 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry. She is also the Li Ka Shing Chancellor’s Chair in Biomedical and Health sciences as well as a professor of biochemistry, biophysics, and structural biology. Her work focuses on RNA interference and gene editing.

In 1985, she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in biochemistry from Pomona College and in 1989 received her PhD in biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology from Harvard Medical School. From 1991 to 1994, she was a Lucille P. Markey post-doctoral scholar in Biomedical science at the University of Colorado Boulder. She also received fellowships from the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

From 1994 to 2001, Dr. Doudna was an associate professor and full professor at Yale University. In 2002, Dr. Douda accepted a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology position at the University of California, Berkeley. She has also been researching with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1997, and her work with CRISPR-Cas9 and other genome-engineering techniques has led to breakthroughs in human and agricultural genomics research. At the Doudna Lab, researchers focus on determining mechanisms of novel genome editing tools for in vitro usage in plants and mammals as well as anti-CRISPR agents.

Dr. Doudna has received numerous awards for her work including the 2020 Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing a method for genome editing, the 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the 2016 Japan Prize, the 2019 Welfare Betterment Prize, the 2020 Wolf Prize in Medicine, and the 2025 National Medal of Technology and Innovation. She is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Inventors, and a member of the Royal Society.