I have always felt that CRISPR is a technology that has enormous benefit to bring to humankind, with appropriate caution. We have to be responsible in its use. We have to be proactive about making sure that it's being used properly. I think, for the most part, that's happened in the field so I'm pleased about that. There's always work to be done. Right now, I would say that the thing I think about the most is something that actually has been discussed at this conference a bit, which is access to the technology, making sure that as it becomes more and more clear that this technology truly can change people's lives for the better. It can remove the cause of genetic diseases. I mean, that's just extraordinary, but it won't have impact unless we figure out how to reduce the cost and make it easier to get those technologies into patients that can benefit.

So how do we do that? I am very excited about trying to do it more in a nonprofit setting, which is why I'm continuing to work at the University [of California, Berkeley] and at our Innovative Genomics Institute because our vision there is to use a nonprofit setting to be able to run clinical trials and also work with companies to figure out a path forward that will lead to a more accessible future for CRISPR. It's going to be multifaceted. It's going to involve not only advances with the technology, but also how we deliver CRISPR into cells, how we allow patients into trials, how the Food and Drug Administration is regulating trials that involve CRISPR. All of those things we have to be looking at.

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.