Emmanuelle Charpentier
Emmanuelle Charpentier, August 2015
Born	(1968-12-11) 11 December 1968 (age 49) Juvisy-sur-Orge, France
Nationality	French
Alma mater	Pierre and Marie Curie University (today the Faculty of Science of Sorbonne University) Pasteur Institute
Known for	CRISPR[1]
Scientific career
Fields	Microbiology Genetics Biochemistry
Institutions	University of Vienna Umeå University Max Planck Society
Website	www.emmanuelle-charpentier-lab.org

Emmanuelle Marie Charpentier (born 11 December 1968) is a French professor and researcher in microbiology, genetics and biochemistry.^[1] Since 2015, she has been a Director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology.

Education[edit]

Born in 1968 in Juvisy-sur-Orge in France, Charpentier studied biochemistry, microbiology and genetics at the Pierre and Marie Curie University (today the Faculty of Science of Sorbonne University) in Paris.^[2] She was a graduate student at the Institut Pasteur from 1992 to 1995, and was awarded a research doctorate.

Career and research[edit]

The Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, Germany

Charpentier worked as a university teaching assistant at Curie from 1993 to 1995 and as a postdoctoral fellow at the Institut Pasteur from 1995 to 1996. She moved to the US and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Rockefeller University in New York from 1996 to 1997. She worked as an assistant research scientist at the New York University Medical Center from 1997 to 1999 and in 1999 held the position of Research Associate at the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and at the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine in New York from 1999 to 2002.^[2]

After five years in the United States, she returned to Europe and became lab head and a guest professor at the Institute of Microbiology and Genetics, University of Vienna from 2002 to 2004. From 2004 to 2006 she was lab head and an assistant professor at the Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology. In 2006 she became private docent (Microbiology) and received her habilitation at the Centre of Molecular Biology. From 2006 to 2009 she worked as lab head and Associate Professor at the Max F. Perutz Laboratories.^[2]

Charpentier moved to Sweden and became lab head and associate professor at the Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (MIMS), at Umeå University. She held these positions from 2009 till 2014, and was promoted to lab head as Visiting Professor in 2014. She moved to Germany to act as department head and W3 Professor at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig and the Hannover Medical School from 2013 until 2015. In 2014 she became an Alexander von Humboldt Professor.^[2]

In 2015 Charpentier accepted an offer from the German Max Planck Society to become a scientific member of the society and a director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin.^[2] Since 2018, she is Founding and Acting Director of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens.^[3] Charpentier retained her position as Visiting Professor at Umeå University until the end of 2017, where a new donation from the Kempe Foundations and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation has given her the opportunity to offer more young researchers positions within research groups of the MIMS Laboratory.^[4]

CRISPR/Cas9[edit]

Charpentier is best known for her role in deciphering the molecular mechanisms of the bacterial CRISPR/Cas9 immune system and repurposing it into a tool for genome editing. In particular she uncovered a novel mechanism for the maturation of a non-coding RNA which is pivotal in the function of CRISPR/Cas9.^[5] In collaboration with Jennifer Doudna's laboratory, Charpentier's laboratory showed that Cas9 could be used to make cuts in any DNA sequence desired.^[6][7] The method they developed involved the combination of Cas9 with easily created synthetic "guide RNA" molecules. Researchers worldwide have employed this method successfully to edit the DNA sequences of plants, animals, and laboratory cell lines.

Awards[edit]

Charpentier has been awarded numerous international prizes, awards and acknowledgements, including the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the Gruber Foundation International Prize in Genetics, the Leibniz Prize, Germany's most prestigious research prize, the Japan Prize, and the Kavli Prize in Nanoscience. She has won the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award jointly with Jennifer Doudna and Francisco M. Mojica, whose pioneering work has ignited “the revolution in biology permitted by CRISPR/Cas 9 techniques.” These tools facilitate genome modification with an unprecedented degree of precision, and far more cheaply and straightforwardly than any previous method. Not unlike today’s simple, intuitive word processing programs, CRISPR/Cas 9 is able to “edit” the genome by “cutting and pasting” DNA sequences: a technology so efficient and powerful that it has spread like wildfire round the laboratories of the world, explains the jury, “as a tool to understand gene function and treat disease.” Also, in the spring of 2015, Time Magazine designated Charpentier one of the 100 most influential people in the world (together with Jennifer Doudna).^[8]

Memberships in science academies include the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina,^[9] the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, the Austrian Academy of Sciences,^[10] the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences^[11] and The United States National Academy of Sciences.^[12] In addition, Charpentier has been awarded honorary doctorate degrees from the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium), New York University (US), the École Polytechnique Fédéral de Lausanne (Switzerland), Umeå University (Sweden), Western University of London, Ontario (Canada) and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Awards and honours (selection)[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• 
  Extensive biography of Emmanuelle Charpentier at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology
  


• Umeå University Staff Directory: Emmanuelle Charpentier


• Nature 471, 602–607 (31 March 2011): "CRISPR RNA maturation by trans-encoded small RNA and host factor RNase III"


• Science, June 28 2012: "A Programmable Dual-RNA–Guided DNA Endonuclease in Adaptive Bacterial Immunity"


• Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden – Short Curriculum Vitae of Emmanuelle Charpentier


• Crispr Therapeutics: Scientific Founders


• Emmanuelle Charpentier to become a Director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin