The 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to two women who pioneered a new genetic technology that has captured the public imagination and revolutionised science. Kevin Davies tells the story of how CRISPR changed the future in less than a decade.

When the international phone call came, at precisely 2:53 am Pacific time, the country code showed the UK, not Sweden. Heidi Ledford, a reporter for the journal Nature, had the unexpected honor of informing a groggy Jennifer Doudna that she’d won the 2020 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, sharing it with her former collaborator, French microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier.[1] ](Doudna had slept through the official call from Göran Hansson, Secretary General of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.)

“What a testament to Doudna’s work ethic,” Ledford tweeted later. “I certainly wouldn’t have taken a call from me at that hour.”