A programmable dual RNA-guided DNA endonuclease in adaptive bacterial immunity.

Order of authorship in the original publication: Jinek, Chylinski, Fonfar, Hauer, Doudna, Charpentier. Doudna, Charpentier and colleagues showed for the first time that the CRISPR evolutionary immune tool of bacteria against bacteriophages could be manipulated, reprogrammed, and guided to make very specific "cuts" on desired target segments of DNA in the lab, making this a gene-targeting and genome-editing tool. This potentially allowed scientists to change or rewrite the genetic code of any organism at will. However, at this point the science was only applied to bacteria. Digital facsimile from PubMedCentral at this link.

In 2020 Charpentier and Doudna were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for the development of a method for genome editing.”

See also Nos. 11845, 11867 and 11849.

 (Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)