Prof. Kim and his team have been at the forefront of developing genome-editing technologies, which are now widely used in biomedical research, biotechnology, and medicine. Genome editing in cultured cells, animals, and plants relies on programmable nucleases that precisely cleave chromosomal DNA in a targeted manner. His team has pioneered and enhanced three major classes of programmable nucleases: zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs), TAL effector nucleases (TALENs), and RNA-guided endonucleases derived from the CRISPR-Cas9 adaptive immune system in prokaryotes. More recently, his team has developed programmable deaminases for targeted base editing in mitochondria and chloroplasts, opening new possibilities for therapeutic mitochondrial DNA editing as well as agricultural and environmental applications in response to the climate crisis.