Pope Francis appointed Berkeley Professor Jennifer Anne Doudna, a professor at the University of California, an Ordinary Member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
Jennifer Anne Doudna
Doudna grew up in Hilo, Hawaii. She graduated from Pomona College in 1985 and earned a Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1989. Apart from her professorship at Berkeley, she is also president and chair of the board of the Innovative Genomics Institute, a faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institutes, and an adjunct professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). In 2012, Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier were the first to propose that CRISPR-Cas9 (enzymes from bacteria that control microbial immunity) could be used for programmable editing of genomes, which has been called one of the most significant discoveries in the history of biology. Since then, Doudna has been a leading figure in what is referred to as the “CRISPR revolution” for her fundamental work and leadership in developing CRISPR-mediated genome editing.
Outside the scientific community, she has been named one of the Time 100 most influential people in 2015 (with Charpentier), and she was listed as a runner-up for Time Person of the Year in 2016 alongside other CRISPR researchers.
Pontifical Academy of Sciences
Founded in Rome by Federico Cesi, Giovanni Heck, Francesco Stelluti, and Anastasio de Filiis on August 17, 1603, the Academy was re-founded in 1847 by Pius IX. It was moved to its present location, the Pius IV Casina in the Vatican Gardens, in 1922.
The mission of this Pontifical Academy is to honor pure science wherever it’s found, to guarantee its liberty, and to foster research for its advancement. A President heads the Academy, assisted by a Council. The Holy Father appoints its 80 Pontifical Academics for life. The Vatican states that the Pontifical Academy of Sciences has an international scope, it is multi-racial in its composition and non-sectarian in the election of its Members. The Academy works in the following areas: Basic Sciences, Science and Technology of Global Problems, Science of the Problems of the Developing World, Scientific Policy, Bioethics, and Epistemology.
