9 Posts
Creator
9 Posts
Creator
The #CodeBreaker tells the #story of CRISPR pioneer #JenniferDoudna.
A #BestBook of 2021 by #Bloomberg #BusinessWeek, #Time, and #TheWashingtonPost
The #bestselling #author of Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs returns with a "compelling" (The Washington Post) account of how #NobelPrize winner Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues launched a #revolution that will allow to #cure #diseases, fend off #viruses, and have healthier babies.
The book, both a #biography of #Doudna and a deep dive into the ethics of #genetic engineering, is written for people who may have heard of #CRISPR but don’t know much about the history of its development.
The #book digs into the fierce patent battles that have ensued between the #University of #California (#Doudna is at the Berkeley campus) and the Broad Institute of "#MIT and #Harvard, where other #researchers, most notably #FengZhang, were also developing the gene-editing tool.
The tone and style of the book’s first half mimic The #DoubleHelix, setting up the #scientific #process as a detective story, one focused first on understanding how bacteria rely on #CRISPR to fend off viral infections and then on how #scientists transformed that natural #bacterial defense system into a tool that allows #humans to edit their own #DNA.