TIME named Emmanuelle Charpentier to the 2015 TIME 100, its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. The full list and related tributes appear in the April 27 issue of TIME, available on newsstands and tablets on Friday, April 17, and now at http://time.com/3822554/emmanuelle-charpentier-jennifer-doudna-2015-time-100/.
Charpentier is honoured for her research about the bacterial immune system CRISPR-Cas9, which bacteria use to fight off pathogens. The system detects foreign DNA, cuts it up and thus makes the invaders harmless. This mechanism can be exploited in the laboratory as it allows scientists to eliminate or add genes in a more targeted manner than before. Using this method, diseases caused by gene mutations could be treated faster and more precisely. However, there is still a lot of work to be done before this kind of medical usage will be possible. Still there are high hopes that the method will become a powerful tool in genetic engineering and in the therapy of diseases.
“I am honoured to have been selected as a biologist among the Time100 of the year. This recognition highlights the efforts of a team of young and enthusiastic researchers with whom I thrive to understand the mechanisms of life for the benefit of scientific knowledge and human medicine”, Emmanuelle Charpentier commented her election to the TIME 100 list.
The list, now in its twelfth year, recognizes the activism, innovation and achievement of the world’s most influential individuals. As TIME Editor Nancy Gibbs has said of the list in the past, “The TIME 100 is a list of the world's most influential men and women, not its most powerful, though those are not mutually exclusive terms …. While power is certain, influence is subtle…. As much as this exercise chronicles the achievements of the past year, we also focus on figures whose influence is likely to grow, so we can look around the corner to see what is coming."
Emmanuelle Charpentier is Head of the Regulation in Infection Biology department at the HZI and a Guest Professor and PI at the Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden and Umeå Centre for Microbial Research. Furthermore, she holds an Alexander von Humboldt professorship at the Hannover Medical School, Germany. Her work has been recognized by numerous awards in the recent past and she is one of the leading scientists in her field.
The complete list can be found here: http://time.com/collection/2015-time-100/
