Emmanuelle Charpentier

Emmanuelle Charpentier is the founder, scientific and managing director and head of administration of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens, as well as honorary professor at Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. Prior to her current appointments, she was scientific director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Berlin; Alexander von Humboldt professor, head of department at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Braunschweig and full professor at the Hannover Medical School, Germany; visiting and associate professor at the Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (EMBL Partnership), Umeå University, Sweden; associate professor at the Max F. Perutz Laboratories, and guest and assistant professor at the Institute of Microbiology and Genetics, University of Vienna, Austria. Prof Charpentier held several research associate positions in the USA: The Rockefeller University, New York University Medical Center and Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine, New York, and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis. She received her education in microbiology, biochemistry and genetics at the University Pierre and Marie Curie and the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France. She has been widely recognised for her pioneering and groundbreaking research that laid the foundations for the revolutionary CRISPR-Cas9 genome engineering and editing technology. She has received numerous prestigious international awards and honours, including the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and is an elected member of many national and international scientific academies. She co-founded CRISPR Therapeutics and ERS Genomics with Rodger Novak and Shaun Foy.

Mandate ERC Scientific Council: 1 Jan 2026  - 31 December 2029