October 7, 2020

Crispr’s Nobel Moment

“Crispr — overrated or underrated?”

At this month’s CBInsights Future of Health conference, I had the good fortune to do a live interview with Forbes Senior Editor Alex Knapp. Always a great mix of insights and wit, Alex finished the interview with a Q&A lightning round. One of the questions he asked was about Crispr-Cas9. Is there too much hype, or not enough?

My answer was an unequivocal “Underrated!” 

For all of the very legitimate ethical concerns about genome editing, and healthy skepticism about the efficacy of individual research projects and application, I believe that Crispr-Cas9 technology holds enormous potential that we’ve only begun to understand and explore, for both preventing and treating serious diseases, including disabling genetic disorders and cancer.

So I couldn’t be more thrilled about today’s awarding of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to two Crispr-Cas9 pioneers, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna.

Today’s Nobel also marks the first time that two women have received this prestigious honor. It’s another sign of continued progress — for science, and for equality.

All of us at Vineti extend our congratulations to these two inspirational researchers, for their vision and for their leadership! Even amid the many challenges of COVID-19, advanced therapies continue to move ahead in 2020, thanks to pioneers such as Drs. Charpentier and Doudna.

Amy DuRoss is the CEO and a Co-founder of Vineti.  You can learn more about Vineti and how our software solution supports advanced therapies here. If you’d like to learn more about how Vineti’s Personalized Therapy Management (PTM) platform is helping to standardize and industrialize workflows for personalized therapies, please contact us.