The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna for "the development of a method for genome editing." The 10 million kronor (about $1.12 million) prize will be shared equally between the two. 

Charpentier and Doudna developed the CRISPR/Cas9 DNA editing technique, a simple but powerful way to edit the genomes of living organisms. This approach, which was developed less than a decade ago, is seen by many as a now crucial tool in fighting and curing many diseases and conditions.