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

Though I gave this a 5-star review, It's not perfect. But for the sheer breadth and depth of information on Doudna and this topic, the book deserves full credit. Also, this book discusses complex scientific information with clarity and insight so that even an English major (word perp) can enjoy the discussion of the process and have their curiosity satisfied about gene editing, not an easy task -- but one that Isaacson does quite well. I also love the evolution of discovery that Isaacson describes, and I love that he introduces the reader to all those participating as he tells this story, Doudna's story. He also describes the brutal competition of scientists and researchers and the dynamic of collaboration in that community. But he notes the change that occurred during and after the pandemic. As a reader, I had a true sense of how all the pieces fit together after I read this book. Isaacson addresses the "elephant in the room" in detail by discussing the potential benefit and horror of gene editing for humankind. He does this in a way with provocative questions and answers that reveals a careful and methodical researcher who has a good understanding of what's at stake. He distinguishes between "treatment and enhancement" with precision. Last, I love how he inserts Doudna's actions, reactions, and dialogue into this story in which she is the lead protagonist. He does a careful job of uncovering uncomfortable issues that occurred along the way of discovery. I'm left with the impression that Jennifer Doudna is a singular ethical and brilliant research scientist who has paved and continues to pave the way for young scientists, especially young women, to change the world, even as she has. In discussing the different facets of collaboration, before and after Mar 2020, I love that he emphasizes the importance of a cross-discipline approach and how various perspectives and experiences contribute to discovery. My only two complaints (and these may seem overly critical) are that Isaacson seems to be overly accommodating to certain men in the book who had sexist tendencies or who were more rogue than research, but I think he does this to show extreme objectivity. Sometimes, though, his commentary was too opinionated and complimentary, to make up for being objective, when it was best to let the reader come to their own conclusions. I didn't need to be told how wonderful this person was even though they had just shown themselves or even though they had just said or did something unethical. The other complaint is that Isaacson describes so much about his own life and opinions that whenever I read them, I would develop a twitch. I wanted to say, "Dude, how do you give your opinion without giving your opinion?" That's Reporting 101. And he didn't really have to describe a person's physicality quite so much. Do we really need to know about someone's "chipmunk-cheeked round face"? But I forgive him and recommend this book 100%. One more thing, I love the he ends the book by describing a repaired exchange between Doudna and Charpentier. And I love that he gives full credit to Rosalind Franklin, and I love the spirit of hopefulness of what's possible for future generations that he leaves the reader with.

A biological revolution is occurring right now, one expected to be as impactful as the digital revolution. This book tells the story of that revolution and the players in it, especially Jennifer Doudna and her co-workers who discovered the breakthrough that allows CRISPR to exist and gives it the potential to fix defects in cells. Doudna was determined to be a scientist from her teen years after reading James Watson's account of discovering and mapping human DNA. After college and her doctorate, she became interested in RNA and with the help of others was able to use it to cut out defective strings in DNA and replace it with the correct sequence. She and her French partner, another woman named Emmanuelle Charpentier won the Nobel Prize for this discovery and others in the field. But all is not rosy in the CRISPR world. Although science has made breakthroughs throughout history due to collaboration and shared research, the awarding or prizes and patents has made the scientific world more capitalistic. Doudna beat out another team from Boston headed by Zheng Fang, by only a slight margin and tension between the two labs has continued for years. There are many benefits to this discovery. Genetic diseases such as sickle cell anemia and Huntington's disease, which are caused by a single gene defect now have hopes of being cured. The work can be used to increase plant production and farm productivity, making food security more of a reachable goal. Cancer is another frontier that could benefit and only yesterday I read about CRISPR making breakthroughs in ALS, a degenerative nerve disease. There are also ethical problems. One of the biggest is the decision to either work on genes that exist in a living person, which benefits that individual or using CRISPR to change inheritable DNA, which changes the entire human genome forever more. Is changing our genome something the human race is prepared to do without knowing all the repercussions it can cause? This is the field for enhancements such as greater muscle strength, appearance, and perhaps intelligence. Who would pay for this? Would it stretch the gap between poor and rich even further as the rich choose to give their children advantages poorer parents could only dream of? Walter Issacson has been a journalist for many years, working on magazines such as Time. In recent years, he has worked on biographies of scientists in breaking news fields such as Steve Jobs and Einstein and those involved in the digital revolution. He also has written works on Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin and Henry Kissinger. His work is detailed and he explains the science of the CRISPR world in a way that those not in the field can understand readily. This book is recommended for nonfiction readers.

This is an important book, but it is not a typical Isaacson biography. As the subtitle admits, it is a broader story about the science and scientists of gene editing and their impact on the human race. Like Isaacson's "pure" biographies, it is well-written and solidly-researched. Unlike those books, this one provides vignettes of many of the other scientists who collaborated with and competed against the principal subject, Jennifer Doudna. In doing so, it provides valuable insights into how scientific discoveries move from basic science to applied science. It also shows the international scale of those contributions and competitions. Photographs sprinkled across the book humanize the subjects and reinforce their diversity. The book also demonstrates how academic science is merging with startup companies today. Those aspects alone make this book valuable reading in our current age. Isaacson does an admirable job of explaining the science to a broad range of readers, although there were times I would have appreciated some additional depth on the more important concepts. (There were also times when I felt he was providing too much detail on the peripheral players.) A less well known author might not have classified this book as a biography. To benefit from Isaacson's well-deserved reputation for his biographies, the book properly emphasizes Jennifer Doudna, who shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with her former collaborator and competitor, Emmanuelle Charpentier. Doudna is fascinating subject and a wonderful role model for anyone interested in science, especially girls and women. Because of the book's broader sweep, we learn less about Doudna than we might have in a typical biography, which was a disappointment. Although the breakthroughs the book describes will change the world, I was disappointed in Isaacson's treatment of two areas: First, while I appreciated his coverage of the moral and social justice questions surrounding human intervention in inheritable genetic traits, I found his personal views unnecessary and distracting. Second, I thought he shortchanged the additional invention needed to move gene editing forward. His cheerleading for Doudna and the other biotech scientists was appropriate and his demonstration of how easy gene hacking can be was a good warning for all of us. But much more will be required to make gene editing as safe and practical as it will need to be, particularly for edits that affect humanity's gene pools. Even a few more pages of foresight on those topics would have been appreciated. Overall, this is an important book that deserves reading. It's also a clever effort by a brilliant biographer to market a broader story under the guise of a more traditional biography.

Whenever I see Walter Isaacson has a new book out, I think two things: it’s going to be a good book, and it’s going to occupy a lot of my free time. I enjoyed reading this book. I found it relatively easy to read even though it took me a few weeks. This is the only book of his I’ve ever finished. The book mainly focuses on Jennifer Doudna and the advent of gene editing with CRISPR technology. Major scientific advances are fueled by the collaboration of many different people, and not just one. She, however, seemed to be the biggest and most level-headed player, and as a result, shared the Nobel prize with Emmanuelle Charpentier. One of Isaacson’s previous books, The Innovators, took the approach on focusing on many different scientists, but it didn’t hold my attention for long. Focusing on Doudna made the topic more personable and enjoyable. The book also covered more current events rather than historical ones. I loved reading it. The science can be complex, but it felt like the author didn’t go any deeper than he needed to get the point across. He would also take the time to summarize the fundamentals discussed periodically. The book also gave insight into the legal intricacies of how they published their papers and were granted patents. The author also seemed to cover every ethical viewpoint and how the ethics evolved but with none of the stupid politics. I really enjoyed that. Although the focus was on Doudna, the author remained objective and did not take her side on everything. For example, she did not care much for her competitive rivals Eric Landers and Feng Zhang; however, Isaacson thought highly of them and made a point of explicitly saying so. Jennifer Doudna doesn’t really seem to have the same superhero status as some of Walter Isaacson’s other subjects like Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo DaVinci, and Steve Jobs. Or maybe she does. It was hard to keep up with this topic by trying to follow the news over the past few years because there has been so much garbage in the news that it was hard to get a good context on anything important. I found this book to be a good summary of everything that’s been happening in the field of CRISPR and gene editing over the past few years without the distractions. I highly recommend it.

As I have grown older, I have seen my family evolve, as my girls became women and mothers and our thoughts moved to family. I am fascinated with what has changed globally over the past 35 years and how we have all grown and become a brave new world as described by Walter Isaacson's wonderful book, The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race (2021). This is the story of a brilliant, young woman, Dr. Jeniffer Doudna, who received the 2020 Nobel prize for advances in CRISPR genetic editing… and also efforts of others that go back 60 years with the discovery of DNA and the work of Rosalind Franklin and James Watson. These changes are dramatic; it is now possible to modify and change the human offspring process as has never possible before. This is a complex story told by the gifted biographer, who has put these world-changing events into a grand perspective. It’s the story of inclusion and the empowerment of women in the future society that they have made possible. I celebrate their successes and their accomplishments; may their wisdom proliferate and their vision make the world better for us all. All children should learn of the realities that Dr. Doudna successfully researched and brought to the future; she has raised new questions with the discovery and development of CRISPR editing that are quite wonderful. Some earlier writings also introduce the foundations of these realities including James Watson’s seminal work on DNA discovery, The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA (1968), that Jeniffer read as a sixth grader when she first thought about women being scientists. Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution (2017), is Doudna’s personal account of the biotechnology that she helped to establish as it was growing at a pace that she had never imagined. I am excited for a future with intelligent leaders in a compassionate world with the increased participation of strong and loving women. ================================= I have written books, policy studies, short stories and technical articles. A New England native, I currently live in Florida between the beach at Hobe Sound and the Loxahatchee River. I am retired, I’ve traveled twice around the world and I’m ready to do it again. I love Judy, the kids, the grandkids and the people I have met along the way. I use an iMac Retina, an iPad Air, an iPhone Xr and the Internet. I promote reading and writing to encourage understanding between generations. My first novel, "The Last Transition…", was published on Amazon in 2006 and I have posted Amazon Reviews since 1998. Enjoy! Bob Magnant

“The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race” by Walter Isaacson takes its science seriously and dumbs down absolutely nothing. I am neither the smartest nor dumbest guy in the room, but I had never heard the term CRISPR before cracking this open. The gentleman at Starbucks asked me what I was reading. When I told him, he said, “Ooh! Fun with CRISPR!”. Who says the schools have failed? The first part of the book is about competition. Many people, including our hero Jennifer Doudna, knew the potential of gene editing and manipulation, but few could agree on who deserved the credit or made the most important discovery. Next, we meander into a portion about the ethics of gene manipulation in what seems to be a different, but still successful novel. In another’s hands, this could have been, as one reviewer put it, “too ambitious.” This book, however, is not Isaacson’s first rodeo, so he knows what to do here. Most will seek out this type of story in order to hear the ethical arguments that came up over the span of the last few decades. Isaacson, a veteran author of history, seems less concerned with establishing a narrative and more focused on demonstrating how the national argument meandered. The scientists involved constantly battled with their desire for credit and responsibility to societal ethics. Most could see both the power of technology and the need for limits. Most agreed that only life-threatening reasons required such a boost. We all draw the line differently. What qualifies as an “enhancement” instead of a “requirement” for life? The most emotionally resonant sections interview deaf and autistic adults who do not, under any uncertain terms, recognize their conditions as disabilities. Some wanted children that reflected their culture. These arguments show how differently we think as Americans. A specific population believes that it is immoral to genetically engineer, while a nearly equal amount feel that it is terrible not to if you prevent debilitating conditions. I wish that I did not have anxiety but the coping mechanisms have proven to me that I have more resilience than anticipated. The same goes for my eldest child but seeing them tackle their fears shows that they will persevere. Our opinions do not condemn those of others. Isaacson acknowledges a blurry line and slippery slope but does not condone those who think differently than he does. He brings together some of the most brilliant minds in science and shows that they all had different goals and visions for the potential of their discoveries. You will want to know more about them. Once we end at the Coronavirus mission, we know how we need to protect these minds.

Great read

Great read with much to ponder. Enlightening at the genesis of this bio technological revolution with its exciting possibilities and its inherent dangers. Only the future will tell. The science is incredible as are the workings of our God made natures. In this book, the accepted worldview is our purely accidental creation and development by ‘Mother Nature’. There appears to be some amount of arrogance in that assertion that may lead to error. At the same time, the scientific discoveries by these bright scientists is amazing and worthy of honor.

Isaacson brings the science of gene editing to life with clarity and warmth. Complex concepts are explained in an accessible way, and he highlights the humanity of the scientists involved, touching on their rivalries and motivations but also really helping the reader get to know them. Perhaps surprisingly, it reads like a gripping story. This is a must-read. I was disappointed to reach the end. But it feels like only the beginning of genomics. This book does an excellent job of raising awareness and understanding of a hugely important technology. Yes the part of morality was a bit different from the overall story, as other reviewers have said. But it was thought provoking and these issues cannot be ignored.

Très bon livre

This is such an insightful read. I am a huge fan of Walter Isacson's work, and this is a great read. It gives an overview on CRISPR technology and its use in gene editing. It is a groundbreaking technology that has been simplified to that many complex concepts are understanable to the reader. It throws light on the ethical dilemmas that arise as a result of this technoology. It has piqued my curiosity in the biotechnology field. It is certainly one of my favourite memoirs that I have read.

Very encouraging that we have come this far but the questions discussed on it’s usage specially diminishing DIVERSITY I have no doubt that it will UNDERMINE humankind natural defense system and diminish all of us in so many ways ( creativity & resilience to begin with ) . As a person and as a scientist I LOVE JENNIFER

Um dos melhores livros biográficos que li nos últimos anos!