a book
A Crack in Creation
Jennifer A. Doudna · 2017 · 304 pages
BY THE WINNER OF THE 2020 NOBEL PRIZE IN CHEMISTRY | Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize
"A powerful mix of science and ethics . . . This book is required reading for every concerned citizen--the material it covers should be discussed in schools, colleges, and universities throughout the country."-- New York Review of Books
Not since the atomic bomb has a technology so alarmed its inventors that they warned the world about its use. That is, until 2015, when biologist Jennifer Doudna called for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the gene-editing tool CRISPR--a revolutionary new technology that she helped create--to make heritable changes in human embryos. The cheapest, simplest, most effective way of manipulating DNA ever known, CRISPR may well give us the cure to HIV, genetic diseases, and some cancers. Yet even the tiniest changes to DNA could have myriad, unforeseeable consequences, to say nothing of the ethical and societal repercussions of intentionally mutating embryos to create "better" humans. Writing with fellow researcher Sam Sternberg, Doudna--who has since won the Nobel Prize for her CRISPR research--shares the thrilling story of her discovery and describes the enormous responsibility that comes with the power to rewrite the code of life.
"The future is in our hands as never before, and this book explains the stakes like no other." -- George Lucas
"An invaluable account . . . We owe Doudna several times over." -- Guardian
"A powerful mix of science and ethics . . . This book is required reading for every concerned citizen--the material it covers should be discussed in schools, colleges, and universities throughout the country."-- New York Review of Books
Not since the atomic bomb has a technology so alarmed its inventors that they warned the world about its use. That is, until 2015, when biologist Jennifer Doudna called for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the gene-editing tool CRISPR--a revolutionary new technology that she helped create--to make heritable changes in human embryos. The cheapest, simplest, most effective way of manipulating DNA ever known, CRISPR may well give us the cure to HIV, genetic diseases, and some cancers. Yet even the tiniest changes to DNA could have myriad, unforeseeable consequences, to say nothing of the ethical and societal repercussions of intentionally mutating embryos to create "better" humans. Writing with fellow researcher Sam Sternberg, Doudna--who has since won the Nobel Prize for her CRISPR research--shares the thrilling story of her discovery and describes the enormous responsibility that comes with the power to rewrite the code of life.
"The future is in our hands as never before, and this book explains the stakes like no other." -- George Lucas
"An invaluable account . . . We owe Doudna several times over." -- Guardian
recommended by 4 people
sourced from public statements
Andrej Karpathy
“Very similar to Watson's "The Double Helix", this book is a part story of discovery and part a textbook, in this case on the topic of CRISPR, from a scientist deeply and technically involved in the technology. The first half of the book explains the basics of DNA, the central dogma, the massive, ancient (and still ongoing) virus-bacteria molecular warfare, the historical context of gene editing research, and finally how CRISPR was discovered and why it is such a big deal. CRISPR evolved as part of a bacterial immune system where the bacteria stores explicit records of viral DNA segments in their genome. Together with a number of Cas (CRISPR associated) proteins encoded by genes in the vicinity, the resulting molecular assembly is able to search the genome for stretches that "match", inducing a double stranded break that disables the gene. It's incredible that this molecular machine was found by evolution and that there are so many forms of it. It's hard to imagine the Cas9 protein whizzing about the nucleus in brownian motion (it does not hydrolize ATP!), interacting with chromatin/histones and somehow cutting up matches. The biophysics of this process elude me. Anyway, this immune system mechanism can be repurposed, improved and generalized to perform very targeted and cheap gene editing (delete, insert, substitute, invert, ...), gene expression up/down regulation, tagging, etc. This is now actively utilized in animals and plants (in both somatic and germ cells), and also on humans (in somatic cells for treatment of many diseases, or more worryingly in the germ line for making permanent targeted changes to human DNA). The book also discusses gene drives, which allow us to hack evolution itself, e.g. giving us the ability to wipe out the entire population of mosquitos, on which I have very mixed opinions. It also goes into some remaining challenges such as specificity, delivery, etc. In some aspects it is not as comprehensive as I'd like (e.g. how the adaptation part works, or what the limits are). In summary, this is really the beginning of a powerful set of technologies with broad societal implications, as we begin to reprogram both us and the nature around us in hyper-targeted ways. It's refreshing to find a book that does such a good job describing large portions of it without dumbing it down too much, and also doing a good job hinting at some of the associated ethical dilemmas ahead of us.”
Matt Ridley
“@arupthenomad Jennifer doudna’s book.”↗
Julia Evans
“been reading this book about CRISPR and it makes me want to learn more about biology :) :)”↗
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