Photo by Britanny Hosea-Small: Jennifer Doudna works with her students in her biochemistry lab at the Innovative Genomics Institute at UC Berkeley in 2019.
Days before they return to Washington to cast votes on the GOP-crafted budget, two California House members toured the Innovative Genomics Institute research lab at UC Berkeley Friday morning, in order to get a look at the real-life impacts of Republicans' goal to whack $4 billion from the National Health Institute.
UC Berkeley receives $169 million in NIH funding.
Reps. Lateefah Simon, D-Oakland, and Ted Lieu, D-Los Angeles, met biochemist Jennifer Doudna, who won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, with her colleague Emmanuelle Charpentier, for the co-development of CRISPR-Cas9, a genome editing breakthrough. The technology enables scientists to rewrite DNA in any organism, which is leading to cures — or nearing cures for diseases ranging from sickle cell anemia to Parkinson's disease to potentially 7,000 genetic diseases. They are also researching a type of drought-tolerant rice that could withstand rapidly changing climate conditions.
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