The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson

The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson

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.

Walter Isaacson is the President and CEO of the Aspen Institute, an international nonprofit organization designed to promote enlightened leadership and dialogue in contemporary issues. He was the Chairman and the CEO of CNN and the Managing Editor of Time. Isaacson wrote the well-received Einstein: His Life and Universe (Simon & Schuster), for which he had access to previously unavailable papers belonging to Einstein. He has also written Benjamin Franklin: An American Life and Kissinger: A Biography, both published by Simon & Schuster, and was the consultant for the 2008 BBC/HBO drama Einstein and Eddington. His work has been published in the US, the UK, Canada, Germany, France, Japan and China. In 2007, Isaacson became a columnist for Time. He lives in Washington DC.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781982115852
ISBN 10	1982115858
Title	The Code Breaker
Author	Walter Isaacson
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Simon & Schuster
Year published	2021-03-09
Number of pages	560
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable