The CRISPR Nobel Prize
How this year’s winners enoble the outdated prize to newfound relevance
It happened quicker than many, including myself, expected. But nobody who ever worked with CRISPR had any doubt it was coming. The Nobel Prize for the foundational discovery of the CRISPR-Cas bacterial immune system, and its applications for universal genome editing, is groundbreaking in many ways.
First, the recipients have been two exceptional female scientists, a hitherto unique composition for the male dominated award. Much has been said about the symbolic value and role model function of this prestigious award. To anyone familiar with the peculiarities in the CRISPR patent war, and knowledge of how many men were involved in the early stages, it is reassuring that women have not been side-lined or willfully overlooked this time (and hopefully indicative for the future).
Second, the remarkable quickness from scientific discovery to wide-spread recognition. It is fair to say that few biological findings have found such a rapid penetration in almost all fields of biology. It is comparable only to the development of PCR (Kary Mullis, Micheal Smith, Nobel Prize 1993) and iPSC (John B. Gurdon, Shinya Yamanaka, Novel Prize 2012), both of which were also awarded shortly after the initial discovery.
Third, the immeasureable impact on civilisation. The discovery of CRISPR-Cas allows for the precise, controlled, efficient and cheap modification of genomes. All living organisms, from deadly microbe to disease vector mosquito to essential crop to human embryo run on a DNA blueprint we call genome. With CRISPR-Cas based editing tools, we can repair, alter or rewrite that blueprint, an immense new power that comes with great potential, but even greater responsibility. This is in the original spirit of Alfred Nobel:
[the interests of his foundation’s funds] … shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.
A Nobel Prize shall celebrate the science, not the scientist, to be meaningful.
Lastly, and maybe the most important and least obvious, this Nobel Prize was both meaningful and unifying. Yes, the idea of selecting scientists on perceived success, judging their life’s work, is deeply controversial. Yes, the Nobel Prize has a record of bad choices, of political and cultural biases. Yes, it is an outdated concept to seek to award just a handful of people among a world full of worthy candidates, of complex collaborations and unclear individual contributions. There are many reasons why scientists are turned off by the outsized impact arbitrary awards excert over their lives. But it doesn’t have to be this way. A Nobel Prize shall celebrate the science, not the scientists, to be meaningful. Great science is not happening in a vacuum, it is an expression and reflection of many societal factors we all shape and contribute to. A meaningful Nobel Prize honors scientists who understand themselves as humble conduits of progress. Progress which is fuelled by the combined energy of our shared humanity, full of messy creativity and relentless hope for a better future.
“I know so many wonderful scientists who will never receive this, for reasons that have nothing to do with the fact that they are wonderful scientists […] I am really kind of humbled.” -Jennifer Doudna, in an interview given to Nature magazine.
This year, the Nobel Prize could not have found more worthy conduits.
