Jennifer Doudna, a biochemist with Berkeley Lab's Physical
Biosciences Division and professor at the University of
California (UC) Berkeley, helped lead the team that identified a
double-RNA structure responsible for directing a bacterial
protein to cleave foreign DNA at specific nucleotide sequences.
Furthermore, the research team found that it is possible to
program the protein with a single RNA to enable cleavage of
essentially any DNA sequence. "We've discovered the mechanism
behind the RNA-guided cleavage of double-stranded DNA that is
central to the bacterial acquired immunity system," says Doudna,
who holds appointments with UC Berkeley's Department of
Molecular and Cell Biology and Department of Chemistry, and is
an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).
"Our results could provide genetic engineers with a new and
promising alternative to artificial enzymes for gene targeting
and genome editing in bacteria and other cell types." Doudna is
one of two corresponding authors of a pap