Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier are being awarded Israel's Wolf Prize in medicine for their work developing the gene-editing tool CRISPR, the Associated Press reports.
The prize, awarded by the Wolf Foundation, aims to "to promote science and art for the benefit of mankind" and is given in five fields: medicine, physics, mathematics, agriculture, and art, Haaretz reports. It adds that the winners receive prizes of $100,000. The AP notes that the Wolf Prize is often seen as a precursor to the Nobel Prize, as about three dozen Wolf laureates later became Nobel laureates.
Doudna and Charpentier are being honored for their work on CRISPR-Cas9, which Haaretz says "is now being used in molecular biology laboratories worldwide, and has the potential to lead to new treatment for incurable diseases — despite the fact that its use [raises] ethical and other questions."
Previous Wolf Prize winners include Steven Hawking, Marc Chagall, and Paul McCartney, according to the AP.