Jennifer Doudna visits SciLifeLab

Today, biochemistry Professor Jennifer Doudna (UC Berkeley, USA) met with PhD-students and postdocs at SciLifeLab prior to speaking at the annual lecture in Structural Biology. Doudna’s lab is mostly known for their work on re-engineering the CRISPR–Cas9 system to provide an effective tool for gene editing. 

The CRISPR-Cas9 system is originally an antiviral defense system found in prokaryotes. CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) are derived from Viral DNA fragments obtained from previous infections and used as a guide for the Cas9 (CRISPR-associated protein) to cleave certain DNA-sequences matching the CRISPR sequence. When re-engineered the system can be used to effectively edit genes by cutting preselected DNA sequences.

During the event, hosted by SciLifeLab seminar series- Campus Solna and ThermoFisher Scientific, Jennifer Doudna met with postdocs and PhD-students to discuss their current projects and also gave an account of her own career path. Later in the afternoon the annual lecture, titled “A Structural View of CRISPR and Genome Editing”, took place.

“I found Jennifer’s talk inspirational and motivational”, says Mihaela Zabulica, PhD Student from Karolinska Institutet. “I’ve followed her publications and I’m very familiar with her research accomplishments, but today she shared personal moments from her career with us”.

The annual lecture series is set up in the recognition of Fritiof Sjöstrand’s contribution to the development of electron microscopy and will be delivered by eminent scientists in the field.