Further Awards in the CRISP-Cas Field

The leading CRISP-Cas scientists received new global awards. Philippe Horvath, based at DuPont’s site in Dangé-Saint-Romain, France, has been honoured together with his partners with the prestigious Canada Gairdner International Award, Canada’s leading science prize, for their ground-breaking work on CRISPR-Cas.

Earlier this month, a Lithuanian scientist Virginijus Šikšnys, VU professor – the leader in the CRISP-Cas field and his four partners, Philippe Horvath among them, have been announced as a 2016 Warren Alpert Foundation Prize winners for the remarkable contributions to the understanding of the CRISPR bacterial defence system and the revolutionary discovery that it can be adapted for genome editing.

DuPont is a leader in the CRISPR area, with about 60 patents and applications. DuPont utilizes CRISPR-derived tools for genome editing applications. Thereof, in summer 2015 DuPont announced a technology license and research collaboration agreement with Vilnius University to further the technical and commercial utility of guided Cas9 genome editing technology.

Eighty-three of Gairdner Award recipients have gone on to win the Nobel Prize. The Canada Gairdner Awards were created in 1959 to recognize and reward the achievements of medical researchers whose work contributes significantly to improving the quality of human life.