Who were the science big shots of 2013? Nature has list of 10 people it says were behind some of the biggest science news stories of the year.
Included in that top 10 is Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Feng Zhang, who has been working on using the CRISPR/CAS genome editing system. CRISPR “allows us to start to make corrections in the genome," Zhang tells Nature. “Because it’s easy to program, it will open up the door to addressing mutations that affect few people but are very devastating.”
Also ranked is Tania Simoncelli, a science policy advisor at the American Civil Liberties Union, who was instrumental in the organization's gene patenting case against Myriad Genetics. Simoncelli now works at on forensic science at White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Nature notes that this is "a project that brings her back to the intersection of science and justice."
Nature also points out a few people to keep an eye on in 2014, such as Masayo Takahashi at the Riken Center for Developmental Biology, who is working on using iPS cells to treat macular degeneration, and Gordon Sanghera, the chief executive of Oxford Nanopore.
Who would you put on your list?