Spaniard Francisco Mojica wins the Plus Alliance award for innovation

The Spanish microbiologist Francisco Mojica (Elche, 1953) has been awarded today in London with the Plus Alliance Award for Global Innovation for the pioneering research that led to the development of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technique. This is the fifth relevant award scientist who adds the microbiologist in a year, among them the most prestigious distinction that is granted in the United States in the field of Medicine -the Albany Prize- and he achieves it a month before failing the Nobel prizes, to which he aspires in the category of Medicine and Chemistry. King’s College London (United Kingdom), the State Universities of Arizona (United States) and New South Wales (Australia) have recognized with this award the work of Mojica in «one of the most significant in the life sciences. ”“ Dr. Mojica’s discoveries underpin the widely acclaimed gene-editing technology that in recent times has been linked to an acceleration of the cure for Huntington’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, “said those responsible for the award. The jury recognizes that in the same field there have been advances by the hand of” brilliant scientists such as Jennifer Doudna, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Feng Zhang. that “the foundations (of this genetic editing technique) were laid thanks to Francisco Mojica in Spain and his fundamental research on bacteria.” The Spanish researcher was present at a ceremony held in the British capital, within the framework of the “Times Higher Education World Academic Summit. “” Somehow, I fell in love with CRISPRs in the 1990s as a PhD student, when they were just a curiosity in the genome of a strange microorganism, “said Mojica.“Since then, I have continued to develop my passion, which has led to great discoveries and wonderful collaborations. The scientific community is collegiate and collaborative by nature, “he added. For the researcher,” being recognized by the Plus Alliance today means the recognition of my community, it is a great honor, “he said. Mojica, who prefers to be called Francis, is a microbiologist from the University of Alicante (UA), and recently received the Albany Prize in the field of Medicine, one of the most prestigious awards in the field of health after the Nobel Prize. This prestigious American distinction will be presented to him on September 27 in New York along with four other scientists of various nationalities who have begun to develop their discovery of the CRISPR-Cas9 technology: Emmanuelle Charpentier of France, Jennifer Doudna of the United States, Luciano Marraffini of Argentina and Feng Zhang of China. he has received at King’s College, London, joins the Jaime I Prize for Basic Research (2016), which he collected in October last year, and Frontiers of Knowledge in the Biomedicine category of the BBVA Foundation, last January. Also to the Biomedical Research Award’2017 of the Lilly Foundation in the preclinical modality, which it received last March; and the Albany Prize, whose ruling was known in mid-August and which he will collect at a gala in New York on September 27. Mojica is the father of the revolutionary CRISPR / Cas 9 gene editing technique, capable of cutting and pasting sequences of DNA efficiently and cheaply.This technique is used by scientific groups around the world to develop specific applications in the fight against diseases of genetic origin, from cancer to muscular dystrophy.