The Code Breaker

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

By: Walter Isaacson

Narrated by: Kathe Mazur, Walter Isaacson

Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

A 2022 Audie Award Finalist

A Best Book of 2021 by Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Time, and The Washington Post

The bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs returns with a “compelling” (The Washington Post) 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 codiscovery 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 an “enthralling detective story” (Oprah Daily) that involves the most profound wonders of nature, from the origins of life to the future of our species.

©2021 Walter Isaacson. All rights reserved. (P)2021 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

Wonderful listen

Worth every minute it takes to digest this entire novel. Hard working folks who have such incredible imagination will move mankind’s health forward at incredible leaps and bounds. But even these scientists can’t save the lives of the anti-vaxers. Go science

The Absolute Best!

This is a fantastic voyage beyond imagination that is highly relevant to our current COVID -19 pandemic. The story starts off narrated by the author, Walter Isaacson and closes with his excellent out look of the future of this technology. The majority of the audio book is read by Kathe Mazur who creates for the listener an enthusiastic venture by involving you deeply into the lives of all the scientists and researchers. This is a book for today and everything we are experiencing as it relates to microbiology and gene editing. The passion and competition for the solutions to our genetic understanding and ultimate use of the CRISPR tools will someday create a new world. I can not stress the importance of this excellent and dynamic story. Walter Isaacson is a master at taking a very advanced technology and breaking it down for easy understanding. Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier, two very different personalities won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. This is the first time in history that two women achieved this prestigious award for the same Science of Chemistry. The story starts off with a little girl, Jennifer who's father gives her a copy of the famous book "The Double Helix" by James Watson and Francis Crick as she learns of the most important detective story in history. Jennifer also finds out about Rosalind Franklin, who also could have won a Noble prize if the timing to her discovery was recognized correctly. Today we face the fact that through genetic modifications our science has the ability to modify our genes even down to the Germ line, which is where babies are created. We can fix broken genes to cure diseases like Huntington's or Sickle-cell anemia and many more by inserting corrections or by removing broken genes and completely change the direction of society if we so choose. Science as in all things can be used for positive or negative solutions. Let us hope through sharing important lessons such as in this book it will shape the future in the positive direction for the absolute best!

Much more than a book on Jennifer Doudna

Jennifer Doudna has certain contributed significantly, however, given Walter Isaacson prior books I thought it was too early to write a book on Jennifer. I picked up anyways as I am fan of all his prior booked. The book turned out to be much more than a biography of Jennifer. in fact the central character of the book really is the code of life - Gene or you can even say virus and bacterial which inspired the pioneering work on Crispr and Gene Editing. My favorite sections of the booked were though experiments on bioethics and how scientists put their differences aside to compare the Coronavirus pandemic. Section on Bioethics explore the slippery slope of allowing humanity to change their own genes, from treating diseases to producing designer babies. The section on Coronavirus elaborated how the time of crisis brings the entire world together to solve a problem that affects all. the innovation and collaboration spawned by COVID taught us how the basic sciences can find practical applications in matter of months and not years. Will be spending next week's and months quenching my curiosity on CRISPR, Gene Editing, and thorny topic of Bioethics.

fascinating!

New thinking. Way over my knowledge, but repetitive enough on key pts to be instructional.

The future is here, the beginning of the beginning

The future is here, the beginning of the beginning has arrived. Our world will change a LOT in the next 20 years. A terrific and important read.

Powerful Priceless PrecisionX

Thank You For Priceless Education Information
Very Pleasant Listen
Rearranging Our Landscape
Mind Opening Excitement When You Know You Know

Great and very informing read

I’ve read this book twice and sent copies to friend, they mostly loved it too

Narration can be improved

The narration was confusing. Issacson did it. He was great. I think it could have been improved if there were a female narrator when Doudna was presenting her story. Sometimes I did not know if it was Issacson's point of view or hers.

kindness succeeds even in the competitive world of

would have preferred it being read by Walter Isaacson. it was confusing who was speaking was a Jennifer doudna with a woman's voice or Walter Isaacson.

Interesting read

This book is a bit technical, but very interesting and timely. It’s good to know there are so many super smart people working together, unlike our politicians.