Nobel Prize for DNA scissors

Nobel Prize for DNA scissors 

 

The Nobel Prize in chemistry goes to the French Emmanuelle Charpentier and the American Jennifer Doudna, who have discovered a kind of scissors with which they can cut strands of DNA very precisely. 

 

This chemical tool is only a few years old, but the possibilities are endless, according to the Nobel Prize committee. We can now modify the genetic code in a cell to investigate how the DNA works. 

 

Charpentier discovered that after a viral infection certain bacteria could remember the genetic code of the virus in order to better fight a future infection. She looked at the molecular level to find out how this worked. It turned out to be a kind of scissors. The bacteria cut the viruses apart by the piece of DNA they remembered. (HOP, Bas Belleman)