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The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race

Review

The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race

Winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Jennifer Doudna, along with her team of researchers, is revolutionizing the fields of medicine and genetics. Their contributions will not be fully known or understood for years, possibly decades, but Doudna’s development with collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier of CRISPR, an easy-to-use gene-editing technology, is transforming modern science and medicine.

CRISPR stands for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats,” and it has a wide range of uses --- from helping to cure cancer, sickle cell anemia and male baldness to creating designer babies. While the ability to combat disease is not usually debated, allowing parents to produce “designer children” raises ethical questions for society. Following this life-changing creation, dubbed “the most important biological advance since…the discovery of the structure of DNA,” Doudna, a biochemist and gene scientist, has worked to tackle the moral quandaries associated with the invention, balancing the ability to better fight off new viruses and help prevent depression with allowing parents to choose a child’s gender, intelligence or eye color.

"Although the subject matter is dense, [Isaacson] masterfully tackles the topics necessary to tell the story...with just the right amount of background and detail, and he does not overwhelm the lay reader with information that is not relevant."

While Walter Isaacson touches on these issues in THE CODE BREAKER, the main focus is the actual creation of CRISPR and what it means for the world. Although the subject matter is dense, he masterfully tackles the topics necessary to tell the story of the development of CRISPR and its significance with just the right amount of background and detail, and he does not overwhelm the lay reader with information that is not relevant.

As with most discoveries and inventions, the process for creating CRISPR relied on the work of earlier scientists, and a decent portion of the book sets the stage for Doudna and her team’s efforts. There were significant patent battles and debates in the scientific community about exactly who was involved in the CRISPR discovery, and Isaacson spends some time on those issues and even occasionally weighs in with his thoughts on the conflicts.

As 2020 opened, over two dozen trials were in the pipeline to test CRISPR’s ability to treat very high cholesterol, male pattern baldness, several types of cancer and more. Almost all of them were shut down due to the coronavirus, and Doudna rapidly assembled a group to create tools to fight the pandemic. Instead of continuing their rivalries, these individuals all worked together to create a reliable and easily usable test. As the year progressed, CRISPR was used to help develop a vaccine that not only will fight COVID-19, but can be reprogrammed to effectively deal with any number of viruses that will arise in the future.

Isaacson believes that the world is on the cusp of a life science revolution that will usher in the next great period of innovation. As the technological and digital age ends, defined by the microchip, computer and internet, the inventions in this arena will transform the world in ways that people cannot even begin to imagine and will be at the forefront of fighting future pandemics.

For the first time in the history of this planet, a species on earth has developed the ability to alter its own genetic makeup; as a result, biology will be the technology of the future. It is a brave new world.

Reviewed by Cindy Burnett on April 9, 2021

The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
by Walter Isaacson

  • Publication Date: May 3, 2022
  • Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Science
  • Paperback: 560 pages
  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster
  • ISBN-10: 1982115866
  • ISBN-13: 9781982115869