Emmanuelle Charpentier co-founder of CRISPR gets Nobel Prize in Chemistry – Belagavite Samarth Kulkarni is CEO

CRISPR Therapeutics announced Professor Emmanuelle Charpentier, CRISPR Therapeutics’ co-founder, has been awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her groundbreaking work on the CRISPR/Cas9 system. Professor Charpentier co-founded CRISPR Therapeutics together with Rodger Novak and Shaun Foy. She is Founding, Scientific and Managing Director of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens and Honorary Professor at Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. The prize was also awarded to Jennifer Doudna, Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology and Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley and Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Samarth Kulkarni, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of CRISPR Therapeutics since 2017 is a Belagavite. He did his schooling from Belgaum Military School and PUC from GSS College Belagavi.

Speaking to AAB Samarth said

I am excited for Professor Emmanuelle Charpentier for winning the Nobel Prize and for CRISPR being recognized as a scientific breakthrough. I am grateful for all the congratulatory notes from everyone in Belagavi and hope that we can continue to work hard towards making medicines from this technology.

Emmanuelle said “My most sincere acknowledgments to Rodger Novak, Samarth Kulkarni, the executive team, scientists and all members of CRISPR Therapeutics for their efforts and commitment to further develop the CRISPR/Cas9 technology as gene-based medicines to treat serious human diseases.”

Samarth Kulkarni has significant expertise in strategy and operations in biotech and a wide range of related cutting-edge therapeutic technologies. He joined CRISPR in 2015 in the early stages of the company as Chief Business Officer, and then was appointed to President and Chief Business Officer before becoming CEO. Prior to joining our company, Sam was a Partner at McKinsey & Company, where he had a leading role in the Pharmaceutical and Medical products practice.

While at McKinsey, he co-led the biotech practice, where he focused on strategy and operations, and led initiatives in areas such as personalized medicine and immunotherapy. Previously, Sam served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Casebia Therapeutics, a joint subsidiary formed by CRISPR Therapeutics and Bayer. Sam currently serves on the Board of Directors of two precision oncology companies, Black Diamond Therapeutics and Repare Therapeutics. He also serves on the Board of the Emerging Companies Section of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO). He received a Ph.D. in Bioengineering and Nanotechnology from the University of Washington and a B. Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology. While at the University of Washington, he conducted research on the delivery of biological drugs and in the field of molecular diagnostics. He has authored several publications in leading scientific and business journals.

About Emmanuelle Charpentier
Emmanuelle Charpentier is considered a world-leading expert in regulatory mechanisms underlying processes of infection and immunity in bacterial pathogens. She is Founding, Scientific and Managing Director of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens and Honorary Professor at Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. She co-founded CRISPR Therapeutics together with Rodger Novak and Shaun Foy.

Prior to her current appointments and until 2017, Emmanuelle Charpentier was Associate Professor at the Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (MIMS, within the Nordic EMBL Partnership for Molecular Medicine) and visiting Professor at the Umeå Centre for Microbial Research (UCMR), Umeå University, Sweden, where she habilitated in Medical Microbiology in 2013. She was also Alexander von Humboldt Professor and Head of Department at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Braunschweig and Professor at the Hannover Medical School, Germany.

Emmanuelle Charpentier studied biochemistry, genetics and microbiology at the University Pierre and Marie-Curie (now Sorbonne University) in Paris, where she received her Ph.D. in microbiology for her research performed at the Pasteur Institute. Following her studies in France, she spent more than five years working in the U.S., where she held research associate positions in New York at the Rockefeller University, New York University Langone Medical Center and Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine, and in Memphis, TN at the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. In 2002, she moved back to Europe to lead her first independent research group as Guest, Assistant and Associate Professor at the Max F. Perutz Laboratories (now Max Perutz Labs), University of Vienna, Austria where she habilitated in Microbiology in 2006.

About CRISPR Therapeutics
CRISPR Therapeutics is a leading gene editing company focused on developing transformative gene-based medicines for serious diseases using its proprietary CRISPR/Cas9 platform. CRISPR/Cas9 is a revolutionary gene editing technology that allows for precise, directed changes to genomic DNA. CRISPR Therapeutics has established a portfolio of therapeutic programs across a broad range of disease areas including hemoglobinopathies, oncology, regenerative medicine and rare diseases. To accelerate and expand its efforts, CRISPR Therapeutics has established strategic collaborations with leading companies including Bayer, Vertex Pharmaceuticals and ViaCyte, Inc. CRISPR Therapeutics AG is headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, with its wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary, CRISPR Therapeutics, Inc., and R&D operations based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and business offices in San Francisco, California and London, United Kingdom. For more information, please visit www.crisprtx.com.