Walter Isaacson

"A gripping account of how the pioneering scientist Jennifer Doudna, along with her colleagues and rivals, launched a revolution that will allow us to cure diseases, fend off viruses, and enhance our children"--

Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race

The Code Breaker

Eneko Uruñuela

Her quest to understand RNA led her to that most fundamental question: How did life begin? She studied RNA molecules that could replicate themselves, which raised the possibility that in the stew of chemicals on this planet four billion years ago they started to reproduce even before DNA came into being.

Bouke van der Bijl

Great read about the characters that made CRISPR possible, with a nice end part of the book focusing on RNA and the mRNA vaccines (although I could read a whole book about just that!). This book should've just been a book about CRISPR however, Jennifer Doudna might have been the most forefront character but it wasn't a book about her. 

The book does fall into repetition sometimes, even within the same chapter. I also started noticing a bunch of typos towards the end, so maybe it was rushed out? And I skipped over the whole patent dispute chapter because that's just boring

Lord Aragorn

A wonderful book. Great to read about how progress is made in science, with all the twists and turns. Inspirational to read about Doudna, Charpentier, and all the others pushing the boundaries of our understanding of CRISPR. Isaacson's story telling is very engaging and hope to read more of his works.

Keven Wang

I have never listened to Walter’s book. This turned out to be a great listen. Chapters are concise.

I didn’t like the first part of the book (there are 9) which talks more about Doudna growing up and the scientific explanations of what DNA and RNA and how they work. However, the book gets so much better with part two as it delves into the academic world, the competition in it (with its good and bad implications), and collaboration. As someone who is an academic, I could relate to some of the situations described and that made the book so much more enjoyable. I would definitely recommend it.

McKlayne Marshall

Amazing!! Walter Isaacson has done it again. So rich and relevant to our times. He has painted such an incredible picture of what the future looks like with recent advances in biotechnology.

The bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs returns with a gripping account of how Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues launched a revolution that will allow us to cure diseases, fend off viruses, and have healthier babies. 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.

Kuba Milcarz

This one was sort of about everything. I don’t know if it was a biography or Doudna or history of CRISPR or how some group of people used it to fight COVID-19. It was a mess, but a very informative mess.

Vivian

The Code Breaker is such a gripping combination of biography and science book that it reads like a thriller.

Issacson did an excellent job explaining the science materials (CRISPR, cas-9, COVID test, mRNA vaccine, etc.) that are clear for the general public to follow and understand (I haven’t touched chemistry or biology since high school graduation). 

I was very much impressed by the bitter rivaries, races to publish and patent lawsuits in the science commmunity. I didn’t realize the competition could be so fierce, albeit understandable to a certain degree. Instead of just focusing on Doudna, Issacson also highlights other scientists along the way. It’s clear any major scientific discoveries or inventions are a generational/team effort built on forerunners’ contributions.

The chapters on gene-editing and its moral implications are very thought-provoking - ”someday we may consider it unethical not to use germline gene editing to alleviate human suffering”. And the last part of the book touches on coronavirus which is timely and helps me to understand how the CRISPR based tests and different kinds of vaccines work. 

Overall an engaging and worthwhile read. The only thing missing is that I haven’t got a good sense of what kind of person Doudna is, since so little of her personal life was revealed. Then again this is the first biography written by Issacson that the main figure is still alive, so I understand the likely need for personal privacy.

Aaron Bach

I’m usually a big fan of Walter Isaacson biographies, but this one was only so-so. The character of Jennifer Doudna is inspiring and the topic of gene editing is simultaneously fascinating and challenging, but (a) Isaacson’s tendency to shift into the first person for (what feel like) newspaper essays on the validity of gene editing and (b) the way in which Isaacson regular rehashes material (often using the same descriptions, commentary, and one-liners he’s used before) is very distracting. All in all, it feels like this book should have focused more on Doudna and less on Isaacson’s editorializing.

Omar Fernandez

I would have liked to learn more about Jennifer Doudna herself, but the book did a great job walking through her contributions to the RNA and CRISPR fields. Isaacson did a great job and walking through the scientific accomplishments in the field, Doudna's role in them, and the controversies around the advancement in gene editing. I also enjoyed how Isaacson tackled the issue of academic research and corporate ambitions, including the pros and cons of academic laboratories collaborating with or focusing on starting corporate enterprises. 

All in all, a very engaging and interesting book. I'm a big fan of Isaacson's work, from biographies on Da Vinci (my favorite), Steve Jobs, Einstein, and his book The Innovator's, so I knew to expect something interesting here.

Emily S

I don’t tend to be one for biographies, but when it’s the biography of CRISPR (predominantly focused on the one-and-only Jennifer Doudna), I’m all in.

Whew, the amount of words I could say about this book. It really went on a journey with me. For a few weeks, exceedingly few pages were read as I was struggling with scientific confidence and read “I’m not good enough” between the lines. And then there were other weeks when all I could think was “this is what it’s all about.”

But this is a book review, I guess, so here is a more coherent thought: if you want to know about CRISPR and its impact on the world, this is a fantastic resource. I’m amazed at how technical it gets even though it’s written by a non-scientist. I love how it gives credit to every scientist involved in this crazy discovery, INCLUDING THE INCREDIBLE GRAD STUDENTS AND POSTDOCS who generally never get acknowledged on the world’s stage for their work. I love that *I know people in this book* and that as much as I want to fangirl about the fact that THEY ARE SO COOL TO BE IN A BOOK, I also just know that they’re doing exactly what they’re meant to be doing, and that’s enough for them.

Finally, I love that this story opens with Jennifer Doudna reading James Watson’s The Double Helix as a middle schooler and being transfixed by the wonder of science. I am excited to see this book (and Jennifer’s story) do the same for the children in this generation, especially the girls who now see people who look like them doing amazing things in science.

Shreerag Plakazhi

Well researched, reads like a thriller at times, and filled to the brim with so much gossip. Who knew academia was filled with so much back stabbing! Also a good intro to the topic of Gene Editing and layouts much of the moral arguments in favour and against it without picking a side. High recommendation!

WALTER. ISAACSON

The best-selling author of Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs returns. In 2012, Nobel Prize winning scientist Jennifer Doudna hit upon an invention that will transform the future of 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. It has already been deployed to cure deadly diseases, fight the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, and make inheritable changes in the genes of babies. But what does that mean for humanity? Should we be hacking our own DNA to make us less susceptible to disease? Should we democratise the technology that would allow parents to enhance their kids? After discovering this CRISPR, Doudna is now wrestling these even bigger issues. THE CODE BREAKERS is an examination of how life as we know it is about to change - and a brilliant portrayal of the woman leading the way.

The Code Breakers

Vijayasarathy Muthu

Picked this book, just for Walter Isaacson. 

Amazing book! It should be read by anyone who wants to get a glimpse of how technology will affect our lives in the future. 

An inspirational story about Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues. 

The book was well researched, interesting to read. It followed her academic achievements up to the latter which was about the creation of CRISPR. The stories behind the Nobel Prize was most intriguing part of the book.


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

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