The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing and the Future of the Human Race, Walter Isaacson (4.0)
As with all the Isaacson books I have read, this book highlights the life and career of someone quite remarkable. While Jennifer Doudna is arguably less controversial than Steve Jobs or Leonardo Di Vinci, her main subject (CRISPR gene altering tools) drives important discussions in evolution and ethics. The book has a lot of science and could be difficult to read for those not familiar, but Isaacson does a good job of simplifying (i.e. core of CRISPR: ‘small snippet of RNA that acts as a guide and an enzyme that acts as a scissors’). The ‘how’ is complicated, but you can understand that if one can insert the RNA guide to cut a portion of the DNA helix, we can change our genes. Not controversial when it comes to obvious diseases, very controversial when it comes to ‘designer babies’, choosing height, sex, intelligence, etc. The book follows all the people working on the technology and highlights the competition for patents, credit of discovery and even businesses. I appreciated that the author did not feed the stereotype that scientists compete to the point of losing their integrity. While the main actors in this story are very competitive, he has humanized them all and tended to give them good intentions, for the most part. That is refreshing in today’s media environment of ‘if it bleeds it leads’ on steroids. It would have been easy to stoke the paranoia and make the legal issues even more contentious. I was disappointed in the COVID section at the end, possibly due to the speed at which the science is moving, but it was not clear to me how CRISPR actually contributed. Tests were developed – but where did they end up being used? I remember a very long time over 2020 where the tests were not prevalent and not accurate.
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