Maria Jasin, a renowned molecular biologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering and Weill Cornell, has been awarded the 2025 Pearl Meister Greengard Prize for her groundbreaking work in DNA repair mechanisms and gene editing, which has significantly advanced biomedical research and cancer therapy.

Her pioneering research on DNA repair, particularly homologous recombination, has revolutionized our understanding of genome stability and laid the foundation for modern gene editing technologies like CRISPR.

Jasin's work on BRCA genes has improved understanding of cancer vulnerability, enabling targeted treatments such as PARP inhibitors and DNA-damaging agents, exemplifying the progress in personalized medicine.

She demonstrated that inducing site-specific DNA breaks can stimulate homologous recombination, pioneering early gene editing techniques that set the stage for subsequent advances in genome editing.

Her current research focuses on DNA repair processes in breast tissue during development and disease, aiming to identify new vulnerabilities and resistance mechanisms in cancer.

Her research has fundamentally changed cancer biology by elucidating how homologous recombination functions as a major DNA repair pathway, crucial for maintaining genome integrity in mammalian cells.

Jasin's work revealed how tumor suppressor genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 prevent breast cancer by enabling proper DNA repair through homologous recombination, highlighting their importance in tumor suppression.

Jasin holds notable positions at Sloan Kettering and Weill Cornell, is a member of the National Academies of Sciences and Medicine, and has a distinguished academic background from MIT, Zurich, and Stanford.

The Pearl Meister Greengard Prize, which recognizes outstanding women in science, was awarded to Jasin on September 16, 2025, at Rockefeller University, emphasizing both her scientific excellence and perseverance.

Her contributions to gene editing technologies have established foundational principles that enabled the development of site-directed gene editing as a therapeutic tool.