The code breaker: Jennifer Doudna, gene editing, and the future of the human race

Table of Contents

Part one. The origins of life.
Hilo
The gene
DNA
The education of a biochemist
The human genome
RNA
Twists and folds
Berkeley

Part two. CRISPR.
Clustered repeats
The Free Speech Movement Cafe
Jumping in
The yogurt makers
Genentech
The lab
Caribou
Emmanuelle Charpentier
CRISPR-Cas9
Science, 2012
Dueling presentations

Part three. Gene editing.
A human tool
The race
Feng Zhang
George Church
Zhang tackles CRISPR
Doudna joins the race
Photo finish
Doudna's final sprint
Forming companies
Mon amie
The heroes of CRISPR
Patents

Part four. CRISPR in action.
Therapies
Biohacking
DARPA and anti-CRISPR

Part five. Public scientist.
Rules of the road
Doudna steps in

Part six. CRISPR babies.
He Jiankui
The Hong Kong summit
Acceptance

Part seven. Moral questions.
Red lines
Thought experiments
Who should decide?
Doudna's ethical journey

Part eight. Dispatches from the front.
Quebec
I learn to edit
Watson revisited
Doudna pays a visit

Part nine. Coronavirus.
Call to arms
Testing
The Berkeley lab
Mammoth and Sherlock
Coronavirus tests
Vaccines
CRISPR cures
Cold Spring Harbor virtual
The Nobel Prize.

When Jennifer Doudna was in sixth grade, she came home one day to find that her dad had left a paperback titled The Double Helix on her bed. She put it aside, thinking it was one of those detective tales she loved. When she read it on a rainy Saturday, she discovered she was right, in a way. As she sped through the pages, she became enthralled by the intense drama behind the competition to discover the code of life. Even though her high school counselor told her girls didn’t become scientists, she decided she would.

Driven by a passion to understand how nature works and to turn discoveries into inventions, she would help to make what the book’s author, James Watson, told her was the most important biological advance since his co-discovery of the structure of DNA. She and her collaborators turned ​a curiosity ​of nature into an invention that will transform the human race: an easy-to-use tool that can edit DNA. Known as CRISPR, it opened a brave new world of medical miracles and moral questions.

The development of CRISPR and the race to create vaccines for coronavirus will hasten our transition to the next great innovation revolution. The past half-century has been a digital age, based on the microchip, computer, and internet. Now we are entering a life-science revolution. Children who study digital coding will be joined by those who study genetic code.

Should we use our new evolution-hacking powers to make us less susceptible to viruses? What a wonderful boon that would be! And what about preventing depression? Hmmm…Should we allow parents, if they can afford it, to enhance the height or muscles or IQ of their kids?

After helping to discover CRISPR, Doudna became a leader in wrestling with these moral issues and, with her collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier, won the Nobel Prize in 2020. Her story is a thrilling detective tale that involves the most profound wonders of nature, from the origins of life to the future of our species.

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Code-Breaker/Walter-Isaacson/9781982115852