Jennifer Doudna

“Science funding is not a political football but in fact a down payment on discovery, the seed money to fund a critical step toward ending Alzheimer’s or curing cancer.”

“Studying how bacteria fight viral infections may sound like a niche area of biology, and it was,”

“What if I could become a scientist who worked on discovering things about the natural world, maybe things no one had ever known before?”

“I loved the process of discovery,”

“But this curiosity-driven research led in directions that none of us anticipated at the start of the project.”

“I ended up getting a full scholarship, you know, so that kind of settled the question.”

“I certainly didn't start out in my career thinking I'm doing this to win prizes.”

“I deeply love Hawaii. I love the culture there. It's a very special place,”

“I felt totally unprepared and totally over my head,”

“Everybody else seemed to be a lot more sophisticated than me. . . . I had grown up in such a different place.”

“Lets do this now before the technology is applied in ways which people might feel very uncomfortable about,”

“It’s a wonderful honor to have this opportunity to share with you the science that we’ve done over the last few years, and to discuss the extraordinary opportunities and exciting advances that are happening right now with CRISPR-Cas9 as a genome editing technology.”