Thursday, December 31, 2015

Antipodes blog: French woman of the year 2015

Emmanuelle Charpentier, born in 1968, is a French microbiologist, geneticist and biochemist.


Emmanuelle started her studies at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, then she acquired her doctorate at the Pasteur Institute. She worked for five years as a researcher in several US universities and hospitals, then pursued her activities in Europe, in Vienna, Sweden and Germany. Earlier this year, she accepted a post as director of the new Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin.

This 47-year-old lady is best known in the scientific world for her role in deciphering the molecular mechanisms of the bacterial CRISPR-Cas9 immune system, and her methods are now used as a tool for editing the DNA sequences of plants and animals.

She has just been named as one of ten winners of the prestigious Leibniz Prize in Germany. Included too by Time magazine in the list of the 100 most influential people in the world, Emmanuelle Charpentier will not be surprised or offended (I hope) if I name her in my humble Antipodes blog as French woman of the year 2015.

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