Emmanuelle Charpentier about her time after the Nobel Prize

Interview with Emmanuelle Charpentier

Umeå University met Emmanuelle Charpentier, two years after receiving the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. How has the prize affected her, what has happened in the research field and what she hopes for in the future.

Since 1901, the Nobel Prize has been awarded to laureates at a ceremony held on 10 December each year, in commemoration of Alfred Nobel’s death. But the corona pandemic prevented the traditional 2020 ceremony in Stockholm. Instead, Emmanuelle Charpentier, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her discovery of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing tool, received her prize in Berlin.

After two years hugely impacted by the pandemic, the 2022 ceremony is finally back to its traditional format and for that Emmanuelle Charpentier was invited to the Blue Hall (Blå hallen) in Stockholm.  

In conjunction with the ceremony and her visit to Sweden, Umeå University had an exclusive interview with Emmanuelle Charpentier. She describes what the award has meant to her, what development has taken place linked to CRISPR-Cas9 in recent years and what hopes she has for the future.

She also develops on what importance the workplace climate at Umeå University had on her success, why it is important that young people also devote themselves to research, and what advice she has for future researchers.

Watch the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony