THE CODE BREAKER

By Walter Isaacson

For those of us who are intrigued by the rapidly unfolding advances in medical science, Walter Isaacson’s The Code Breaker, Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing and the Future of the Human Race fills the bill.  Isaacson tells us a story for the ages:  how Jennifer Doudna (American) and Emmanuelle Charpentier (French) - dedicated female scientists who never belonged to the same research institution - collaborated with each other and colleagues from multiple countries in ground-breaking research. Their research earned Doudna and Charpentier the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Isaacson brilliantly weaves a multifaceted tale, introducing Doudna as a child, and documenting the collaborative research that led to the discovery of CRISPR — a system which for centuries has enabled bacteria to enlist RNA and DNA to combat attacking viruses — the role of that system in the battle against COVID-19, and finally, the far-ranging moral consequence of this discovery.

Susan Barron