With an endowment of CHF 250,000, the Marcel Benoist Swiss Science Prize is regarded as the ‘Swiss Nobel Prize’. This year’s laureate, Martin Jinek, is a professor of biochemistry at the University of Zurich. He is being honoured for his outstanding research on RNA-controlled molecular systems capable of specifically targeting cellular genetic material, as well as their application in genome editing. Together with other researchers, Martin Jinek played a key role in further developing the natural CRISPR-Cas9 system into a programmable tool for the targeted modification of DNA. This led to the CRISPR-Cas9 technology for genome editing – also known as ‘genetic scissors’ – which earned Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Through his research, Martin Jinek deepens our understanding of molecular biological processes and opens up new approaches in a wide variety of fields, such as biomedicine (gene therapy), biotechnology and innovative agriculture.
Award ceremony at the Federal Palace
The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) selected the laureate on behalf of the Marcel Benoist Foundation. The award ceremony for the Marcel Benoist and Latsis Swiss Science Prizes will take place on 5 November in the presence of President of the Swiss Confederation Guy Parmelin and President of the Council of States Stefan Engler at the Federal Palace.
CRISPR-Cas: How bacteria defend themselves
Bacteria do not possess an immune system like that of animals and humans. However, they do have a form of adaptive immunity, of which CRISPR-Cas9 is the best-known example. When a virus invades a bacterial cell, it attempts to replicate, which can potentially kill the bacterium in the process. The bacterium defends itself by storing short fragments of the viral DNA in a kind of ‘library’. From these stored sequences, it generates guide RNAs that contain genetic information derived from the virus. If the same virus attacks again, the bacterium can recognise it through this molecular library. The guide RNA then directs the bacterial Cas9 proteins to the corresponding target site in the viral genome, where they cleave the viral DNA, thereby disabling and ultimately destroying the virus.
CRISPR-Cas in gene therapy
Gene therapies existed long before the advent of CRISPR-Cas. Today, around a dozen such therapies have been approved, including treatments for retinal disorders. Most of these therapies work by introducing a functional copy of a gene into cells without replacing or disrupting the defective gene itself. However, the inserted DNA sequence does not always integrate at the intended location in the genome, which can interfere with the function of neighbouring genes. CRISPR offers a more precise and straightforward approach. The technology enables targeted modifications at specific DNA target sites. Moreover, instead of designing a custom protein for each target DNA sequence, a corresponding guide RNA can be created instead to direct the Cas9 nuclease.
In principle, gene therapies follow two main strategies: The first is to disable a harmful gene function by removing or disrupting a DNA segment, a process known as knockout. The cell attempts to repair the resulting DNA break, but the repair is often imperfect, rendering the gene non-functional. The second strategy is to restore a missing gene function by inserting a segment of donor DNA into the genome, a process known as a knockin.
The latest gene therapies operate according to different principles once again. In Base Editing, individual DNA bases are chemically converted. Rather than acting like molecular scissors, the process resembles writing with a pencil, selectively rewriting DNA at specific locations. In Prime Editing, a specialised guide RNA specifies the desired change, which is then incorporated into the DNA with the aid of an attached enzyme, much like the “find and replace” function in a word processor. Alongside these second-generation genome-editing tools, researchers are already exploring third-generation technologies that promise even more far-reaching approaches to genome editing.
The 2026 laureate: Martin Jinek
Martin Jinek, born in 1979 in Třinec in what is now the Czech Republic, is a professor of biochemistry and the head of a research group at the University of Zurich. After completing his degree at the University of Cambridge, he earned his PhD at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg and subsequently conducted research from 2007 to 2012 as a postdoctoral fellow in Jennifer Doudna’s research group at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2013, he was appointed assistant professor at the Institute of Biochemistry at the University of Zurich and promoted to full professor in 2024. Martin Jinek has received numerous prestigious awards for his research, including an ERC Starting Grant and Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (in 2013 and 2018 respectively), the Friedrich Miescher Prize (2015) and the Cloëtta Prize for Medical Research (2026). He was elected a member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) in 2024.
Resources on Martin Jinek’s research
- Pelea O, Tálas A, Carrera JF, Mathis N, van de Venn L, Yeh CD, Kulcsár PI, Marquart KF, Weber Y, Gerecke SE, Harvey-Seutcheu IF, Mailänder D, Pfleiderer MM, Chanez C, Corn JE, Schwank G, Jinek M. Programmable genome editing in human cells using RNA-guided bridge recombinases. Science (2026) doi:10.1126/science.adz1884. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adz1884
- Pacesa M, Pelea O, Jinek M. Past, present, and future of CRISPR genome editing technologies. Cell (2024) 187:1076–1100. https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)00111-9
- Pacesa M, Lin C-H, Cléry A, Saha A, Arantes PR, Bargsten K, Irby MJ, Allain FH, Palermo G, Cameron P, Donohoue PD, Jinek M. Structural basis for Cas9 off-target activity. Cell (2022) 185:4067–4081. https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(22)01198-9
- Pacesa M, Loeff L, Querques I, Muckenfuss LM, Sawicka M, Jinek M. R-loop formation and conformational activation mechanisms of Cas9. Nature (2022) 609:191–196. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05114-0
- Donohoue PD∗, Pacesa M∗, Lau E, Vidal B, Irby MJ, Nyer DB, Rotstein T, Banh L, Toh MS, Gibson J, Kohrs B, Baek K, Owen ALG, Slorach EM, van Overbeek M, Fuller CK, May AP, Jinek M, Cameron P. Conformational control of Cas9 by CRISPR hybrid RNA-DNA guides mitigates off-target activity in T cells. Mol Cell (2021) 81:3637–3649. https://www.cell.com/molecular-cell/fulltext/S1097-2765(21)00613-4
- Anders C, Niewoehner O, Duerst A, Jinek M. Structural basis of PAM-dependent target DNA recognition by the Cas9 endonuclease. Nature (2014) 513:569–573. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature13579
- Jinek M*, Chylinski K*, Fonfara I, Hauer M, Doudna JA, Charpentier E. A programmable dual-RNA-guided endonuclease in adaptive bacterial immunity. Science (2012), 337:816-21. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1225829