Molecular Biology

Michael M. Cox was born in Wilmington, Delaware. In his firstbiochemistry course, the first edition of Lehninger’s Biochemistry was amajor influence in refocusing his fascination with biology and inspiringhim to pursue a career in biochemistry. After graduate work at BrandeisUniversity with William P. Jencks and postdoctoral work at Stanford with I.Robert Lehman, he moved to the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1983. Hebecame a full professor of Biochemistry in 1992. Mike Cox has coordinatedan active research team at Wisconsin investigating the function andmechanism of enzymes that act at the interface of DNA replication, repair, and recombination. That work has resulted in over 200 publications to date.For more than three decades, Cox has taught introductory biochemistry toundergraduates and has lectured in a variety of graduate courses. Heorganized a course on professional responsibility for first-year graduatestudents and established a systematic program to draw talented biochemistryundergraduates into the laboratory at an early stage of their collegecareer. He has received multiple awards for both his teaching and hisresearch, including the Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry, electionas a AAAS fellow, and the UW Regents Teaching Excellence Award. Cox’shobbies include turning 18 acres of Wisconsin farmland into an arboretum,wine collecting, and assisting in the design of laboratory buildings.

Jennifer A. Doudna grew up on the Big Island of Hawaii, where she became interested in chemistry and biochemistry during her high school years. She is currently Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology and Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She received her B.A. in biochemistry from Pomona College and her Ph.D. from Harvard University, working in the laboratory of Jack Szostak, with whom she also did postdoctoral research. She next went to the University of Colorado as a Lucille P. Markey scholar and postdoctoral fellow with Thomas Cech. Doudna has also been a Donaghue Young Investigator, a Searle scholar, and a Beckman Young Investigator, and she is a former fellow of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. She has received numerous awards for her research on RNA and RNA-protein structure and function, including the Johnson Foundation Prize for innovative research, the National Academy of Sciences Award for initiatives in research, the Alan T. Waterman Award from the National Science Foundation, and the Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry from the American Chemical Society. She is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and a Trustee of Pomona College. Doudna is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Jennifer is the recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize for chemistry for herresearch on CRISPR gene editing.