Jennifer Anne Doudna is an American biochemist who has done pioneering work in CRISPR gene editing, and made other fundamental contributions in biochemistry and genetics.
41 Facts About Jennifer Doudna
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Jennifer Doudna has been an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1997.
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Jennifer Doudna graduated from Pomona College in 1985 and earned a Ph.
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Since then, Jennifer Doudna has been a leading figure in what is referred to as the "CRISPR revolution" for her fundamental work and leadership in developing CRISPR-mediated genome editing.
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Jennifer Doudna has been a co-recipient of the Gruber Prize in Genetics, the Tang Prize, the Canada Gairdner International Award, and the Japan Prize.
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Jennifer Doudna was named one of the Time 100 most influential people in 2015.
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Jennifer Doudna was born February 19,1964, in Washington, DC, as the daughter of Dorothy Jane and Martin Kirk Doudna.
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When Jennifer Doudna was seven years old, the family moved to Hawaii so her father could accept a teaching position in American literature at the University of Hawaii at Hilo.
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Jennifer Doudna's mother earned a second master's degree in Asian history from the university and taught history at a local community college.
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Jennifer Doudna's father enjoyed reading about science and filled the home with many books on popular science.
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When Jennifer Doudna was in the sixth grade, he gave her a copy of James Watson's 1968 book on the discovery of the structure of DNA, The Double Helix, which was a major inspiration.
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Jennifer Doudna developed her interest in science and mathematics in school.
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Nothing said to her made her doubt it, Jennifer Doudna said, When someone tells me I can't do something and I know that I can, it just makes me more resolved to do it.
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Jennifer Doudna spent a summer working in the University of Hawaii at Hilo lab of noted mycologist Don Hemmes and graduated from Hilo High School in 1981.
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Jennifer Doudna was an undergraduate student at Pomona College in Claremont, California, where she studied biochemistry.
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Jennifer Doudna started her first scientific research in the lab of professor Sharon Panasenko.
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Jennifer Doudna earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Biochemistry in 1985.
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Jennifer Doudna chose Harvard Medical School for her doctoral study and earned a PhD in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology in 1989.
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Early in her scientific career, Jennifer Doudna worked to uncover the structure and biological function of RNA enzymes or ribozymes.
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Jennifer Doudna's focus was on engineering ribozymes and understanding their underlying mechanisms; however, she came to realize that not being able to see the molecular mechanisms of ribozymes was a major problem.
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Jennifer Doudna went to the lab of Thomas Cech at the University of Colorado Boulder to crystallize and determine the three-dimensional structure of a ribozyme for the first time, so ribozyme structure could be compared with that of Enzymes, the catalytic Proteins.
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Jennifer Doudna started this project at the Cech lab in 1991 and finished it at Yale University in 1996.
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Jennifer Doudna joined Yale's Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry as an assistant professor in 1994.
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At Yale, Jennifer Doudna's group was able to crystallize and solve the three-dimensional structure of the catalytic core of the Tetrahymena Group I ribozyme.
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Jennifer Doudna's group has crystallized other ribozymes, including the Hepatitis Delta Virus ribozyme.
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Jennifer Doudna was promoted to the position of Henry Ford II Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale in 2000.
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Jennifer Doudna gained access to the synchrotron at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for her experiments with high powered x-ray diffraction.
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Jennifer Doudna left Genentech after two months and returned to Berkeley with the help of colleague Michael Marletta, cancelling all of her obligations to study CRISPR.
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Jennifer Doudna cofounded Caribou Biosciences, a company to commercialize CRISPR technology, in 2011.
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In 2017, Jennifer Doudna co-founded Mammoth Biosciences, a San Francisco-based bioengineering tech startup.
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Griffin wanted to move to Boulder, Colorado, where Jennifer Doudna was interested in working with Thomas Cech.
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Jennifer Doudna brought Cate with her to Yale, and they married in Hawaii in 2000.
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Cate later became a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Jennifer Doudna followed him to Boston at Harvard, but in 2002 they both accepted faculty positions at Berkeley and moved there together; Cate preferred the less formal environment on the West Coast from his earlier experiences at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Jennifer Doudna liked that Berkeley is a public university.
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Jennifer Doudna and Cate have a son born in 2002 who attends UC Berkeley, studying electrical engineering and computer science.
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Jennifer Doudna was a Searle Scholar and received the 1996 Beckman Young Investigators Award.
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Jennifer Doudna has been a co-recipient of the Gruber Prize in Genetics, the Tang Prize, the Japan Prize and the Albany Medical Center Prize.
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In 2018, Jennifer Doudna was awarded the NAS Award in Chemical Sciences, the Pearl Meister Greengard Prize from the Rockefeller University, and a Medal of Honor from the American Cancer Society.
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Jennifer Doudna was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2002, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003, the National Academy of Medicine in 2010 and the National Academy of Inventors in 2014.
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Jennifer Doudna was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 2016.
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In 2017, Jennifer Doudna was awarded the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.
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Jennifer Doudna along with Charpentier was named one of the Time 100 most influential people in 2015, and she was a runner-up for Time Person of the Year in 2016 alongside other CRISPR researchers.