The three laureates of the 2016 Tang Prize in biopharmaceutical science said Sunday that the award is not solely for their personal endeavors, but also for the work of many others in the field.
The prize was jointly awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier, Jennifer Doudna and Feng Zhang for the development of a breakthrough CRISPR/Cas9 genome-editing platform that promises to revolutionize biomedical research and disease treatment.
One of the three – Jennifer Doudna – said: "This prize honors the work that has been done by so many to understand fundamental biology and explore where nature can take us.”
The Tang Prize committee said that the Cas9 system has already changed the way scientists approach genetics and has opened the floodgates for the discovery and development of new therapies that benefit humans.
Examples of the applications include the repair of defective genes in a large number of heritable diseases, such as sickle cell anemia and the clearance of integrated genomes of cells chronically infected by viruses such as HIV (human immunodeficiency virus).