the code breaker jennifer doudna gene editing

More than once Isaacson questions whether science suffers in the race for glory. It was eye-opening to read of the ferocious competition, backstabbing and underhanded efforts that can go on as scientists and researchers attempt to get papers published first, win prizes, or obtain patents that can bring in billions of dollars to a college. The mini-biographies also highlight the interpersonal relationships and rivalries among the scientists. But, ultimately, it helps create an understanding that these breakthroughs are not created in a bubble, it requires a patchwork of experiments and expertise over many years. It's a broad cast of characters, and at times the choice seems a bit random. Isaacson passionately charts Doudna's swiftly rising star, as she moves from labs and schools, including Harvard and Yale, ultimately ending up at the University of California, Berkeley where she heads the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology.īut Isaacson also pays tribute to the many others who, in their own way, contributed to the understanding and development of gene editing, by weaving in compelling vignettes along with glossy photos of scientists and researchers.

That interest was ignited when her father gave her a battered paperback copy of James Watson's The Double Helix, a lively account about the discovery of the structure of DNA for which he won a Nobel prize in 1962, along with fellow biochemists Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins. In this case, he focuses on Doudna (pronounced DOWD-nuh) to explore the confluence of science, innovation, and ethics.ĭoudna was raised in Hawaii where with blonde hair and blue eyes she says she felt like 'a complete freak.' But she loved exploring nature in the surrounding meadows and sugarcane fields, and was encouraged by her father and a biology professor to think about a life devoted to science. Like his earlier books on Steve Jobs, Leonardo da Vinci, and Albert Einstein, Isaacson leans heavily on profiles to tell the broader story.

It is being tested in food and animals and, in a limited way, to correct or treat genetic defects such as sickle-cell anemia. Isaacson makes it clear that RNA has played a starring role both in The Code Breaker, as well as in the life and career of its central character, Jennifer Doudna, who was the co-recipient - with Emmanuelle Charpentier - of the 2020 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the discovery of CRISPR, the gene-editing technology.ĬRISPR is the unwieldy acronym for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, which is essentially a natural way of altering or replacing DNA sequences in a cell.

The code breaker jennifer doudna gene editing