The French Emmanuelle Charpentier and the American Jennifer Doudna were already known in the scientific world. Yesterday, they wrote their names in the annals, becoming the 6th and 7th women, and the first all-female duo to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. They are the inventors of molecular scissors (or CRISPR-CAS9), a genome editing system – capable, therefore, of cutting, repairing, replacing certain segments of DNA. Without going into details, this method is revolutionary in the treatment of genetic diseases and viral infections (such as, in particular, cancer). However, the invention is controversial – and even more so in France, where GMO (genetically modified organisms) crops are banned. The ethical aspect was raised when, in 2018, a Chinese laboratory tried to modify the DNA of embryos; there was concern about eugenics that could lead to a Huxleyian dystopia (Aldous Huxley's Brave New World ). But it is a victory: women represent on average 33% of researchers in European countries, and one patent out of 7. For the record, the female duo was competing with Feng Zhuang, a Chinese researcher who had filed an accelerated patent after theirs but had been accepted before. The new Nobel Prize winners hope to inspire future generations of women: "Science is a male field (…) You have to be solid." But the scientist, who left the France more than 25 years ago, has no plans to return. Emmanuelle Charpentier, in a 2016 interview, suspects that "the National Research Agency would not have allocated funds to its project", raising the question of involvement in research in France; the scientist did her thesis at the Institut Pasteur, before leaving for the United States, Germany, Sweden, Austria… today, her laboratory is in Berlin, where she believes she has more freedom of management, but also budgetary. The subsidy allocated in 2020 by the state to the CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research) is 2,638,000,000 euros – 2 billion six hundred million (source: cnrs.fr); The Government is committed to increasing the budget, which is encouraging. However, for comparison, Apple invests $11 billion a year, and Google $16 billion in search. But despite the flaws it highlights, it's a great victory, and an encouraging reminder, in the thick fog of chaos of 2020, that the future is feminine (and therefore can only be better)!
- Advertisement -
