A pioneer in the sizzling new field of genome editing, Zhang has developed accurate and specific genome editing technology for application in eukaryotic cells—including human cells—from natural microbial CRISPR systems.

Awards have come aplenty, with the 2015 Robertson Stem Cell Prize, Cell’s “40 under 40” in 2014, and MIT Technology Review’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies in 2014. Before CRISPR, Zhang was also widely recognized for developing another breakthrough technology called optogenetics, in which neuronal activity can be controlled with light.

(Photo: Len Rubenstein/Broad Institute Communications)