Doudna was formally presented with the 2023 Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award at the Lasker ceremony.
On September 28, 2023, Jennifer Doudna was formally presented with the Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award at the Lasker Foundation's annual awards ceremony, following the March 2023 announcement of her selection.
The presentation ceremony provided the formal, public recognition of Doudna's contributions to enabling CRISPR-based therapeutics, bringing together the biomedical research community to honor the practical, clinical fruits of her foundational 2012 discovery of programmable CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing.
This presentation reflected the completed arc of translational science: from Doudna's basic biochemistry research on bacterial immune systems, through the intense patent disputes and commercialization battles of the mid-2010s, to the emergence of approved gene-editing therapies for patients suffering from severe genetic blood disorders by the early 2020s.
As one of the few individuals to receive multiple Lasker Awards for different aspects of the same body of foundational work — first for the discovery itself in 2018, then for its clinical translation in 2023 — Doudna's recognition trajectory illustrates the Lasker Foundation's practice of honoring both scientific discovery and its downstream real-world impact, cementing her legacy as one of the most consequential scientists of the 21st century.