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The cover of The Code Breaker

The Code Breaker

Walter Isaacson, 2021

Follow Jennifer Doudna from a Hawaii childhood to CRISPR gene editing, through races and patent fights with rivals, the first edited babies, the COVID response, and a Nobel Prize.

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18 parts, about 35 minutes to read.

Why read it

  • Follows the invention of CRISPR from a bacterial defense system to a gene editing tool through the work of many labs, not one genius
  • Shows the race for patents and credit, and how rivals disagreed over whether editing human cells was an obvious next step
  • Examines the ethics of editing embryos, including a scientist who made edited babies, and where treating disease shades into enhancement

Who it is for

  • Readers curious how a scientific discovery becomes a technology
  • People weighing the ethics of editing genes and babies
  • Readers who like science told through rivalries and personal stories

What the summary covers

  1. A Call to Arms2 min
  2. Hilo2 min
  3. The Double Helix2 min
  4. RNA and a Father's Death2 min
  5. From RNA Interference to CRISPR2 min
  6. A Café, a Lab, and a Dairy Company2 min
  7. Charpentier and tracrRNA2 min
  8. The 2012 Paper1 min
  9. The Race Into Human Cells3 min
  10. Companies, Credit, and Patents2 min
  11. Therapies2 min
  12. Rules of the Road2 min
  13. He Jiankui2 min
  14. The Hong Kong Summit2 min
  15. Red Lines2 min
  16. Confronting the Coronavirus2 min
  17. The Nobel Prize1 min
  18. Curiosity and Caution2 min

Recommended by

  • Jon MeachamPulitzer Prize winning presidential biographer
    This is an urgent, sober, accessible, and altogether brilliant achievement.
  • Doris Kearns GoodwinPulitzer Prize winning historian
    When a great biographer combines his own fascination with science and a superb narrative style, the result is magic.
  • Atul GawandeSurgeon, writer and Harvard professor
    The Code Breaker is another Walter Isaacson must-read.
  • Siddhartha MukherjeePhysician and Pulitzer Prize winning author
    This brilliant book is absolutely necessary reading for our era.
  • Sue Desmond HellmannFormer CEO of the Gates Foundation
    This book and Jennifer Doudna’s career show how thrilling it can be to understand how life works.

About the author

  • Walter IsaacsonAmerican journalist and biographer, professor at Tulane University
    • Chair emeritus of Teach for America
    • Vice chair of the Louisiana Recovery Authority from 2005 to 2007, the body that oversaw rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina
    • Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Society of Arts and the American Philosophical Society
    • Cohost of the PBS show Amanpour & Co. and host of the podcast Trailblazers
    • Advisory partner at the financial services firm Perella Weinberg
    • Wrote Kissinger: A Biography in 1992 and coauthored The Wise Men in 1986
    • Served on the Defense Innovation Board

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