French scientist Emmanuelle Charpentier visited Prince Edward County June 11th on a short holiday after receiving an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Ottawa.
Charpentier won a Nobel prize for her pioneering work developing a means of editing genes to modify genetic sequences – a breakthrough discovery known as clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats – or CRISPR. The discovery makes it possible to identify and alter DNA to combat hereditary diseases. As one of the most significant scientific breakthroughs in modern history, Charpentier won the Nobel prize in chemistry with her co-researcher, American scientist Jennifer Doudna, in 2020.
Born in France in 1968, Charpentier was always gifted – a talented musician who also aspired to become a ballet dancer. But she also showed an early childhood interest in science. Walking past the Pasteur Institute in Paris with her parents as a young child one day, she announced she wanted to work there – a goal she accomplished in 1992 after completing multiple post doctorate degrees beginning with years of study at Rockerfeller University in Manhattan and St. Judes Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis. She has conducted research in multiple European research institutions in Vienna and Sweden, and now heads up a research lab at the Max Planck Institute in Berlin.
History Lives Here was contacted by her Berlin travel agency to provide an exclusive visit to some of the County’s most interesting historical sites – the Picton Courthouse, Macaulay Museum, Base31, the Oeno Gallery, and Sandbanks Park where she was greeted by local curators, artists, and park naturalists.
“It was one of the greatest days of my life,” says company founder Peter Lockyer. “I have interviewed hundreds of interesting people over the course of my journalism career. To spend a day with one of the world’s greatest scientists was an honour and once-in-a-lifetime experience. I am grateful to have had this opportunity to meet such an accomplished, modest and thoroughly delightful person. And thanks to staff at Macaulay Museum, Base31, OENO gallery and The Sandbanks Provincial Park for providing guided tours of their sites. Emmanuelle got to see the very best of us.”
