Mendel Lectures: Virginijus Šikšnys

Virginijus Šikšnys holds the position of distinguished Professor of Vilnius University and serves as Chief scientist/head of the department at the Institute of Biotechnology. He is also the Scientific Director of EMBL partnership Institute on Genome Editing at the Life Science Center of Vilnius University. His research focuses on the structural and molecular mechanisms of antiviral defense systems in bacteria and development of novel genome editing tools. Prof. Virginijus Šikšnys’s research on the CRISPR-Cas has had a major impact in the field of gene editing. He together with co-authors, published seminal papers on Cas9 biochemistry that were the foundation for the translation of CRISPR-Cas bacterial immune system into a powerful genome-editing tool. He is a member of EMBO, EAM, Lithuania Academy of Sciences and Norwegian Academy of Sciences and letters. His work has been recognized with several awards and prizes including the Kavli Prize.