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In a ceremony at the White House on January 3, Feng Zhang, core institute member at the Ó³»­´«Ã½ of MIT and Harvard, , the nation’s most prestigious honor for American innovators. 

Zhang, the James and Patricia Poitras Professor of Neuroscience at MIT and a professor of brain and cognitive sciences and biological engineering, was among nine individual recipients of the award. Two Ó³»­´«Ã½ affiliates also received the award: Paula Hammond, an MIT Institute Professor and vice provost for faculty, and David Walt, Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard Medical School and a professor of pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. 

The White House also .

Zhang is widely recognized for his pioneering work in developing the CRISPR-Cas9 genome-editing system and its use in eukaryotic cells. This and other molecular tools developed by Zhang have accelerated biomedical research worldwide. In 2023, the first CRISPR Cas9-based therapeutic, which is based on a design Zhang developed in 2015, was approved for clinical use to treat sickle cell disease.

Zhang is an investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, co-director of the K. Lisa Yang and Hock E. Tan Center for Molecular Therapeutics at MIT, and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

The National Medal of Technology and Innovation was established by Congress in 1980 and was first awarded in 1985 to recognize American innovators who have made significant contributions to the American economy and quality of life.