The Breakers Series: Books 1-3

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Academia is the source of the basic research that industry applies to make important stuff like vaccines.

The Breakers, Newport, Newport, Rhode Island - Book Tickets The Breakers, Newport, Newport, Rhode Island - Book Tickets

Onyeka has always hated her hair so it’s ironic that it should turn out to be the source of a spectacular superpower. Jennifer’s father gave her a copy of The Double Helix when she was six, sparking her keen interest in gene research. Later its author, James Watson, said her CRISPR development was “the most important biological advance since his co-discovery of the structure of DNA.” As RNA discoveries continued to flourish, so did the significance and necessity such findings would have in the future of vaccines. Spanish Molecular Biologist Francis Mojica discovered palindrome-like, repeating segments of DNA, in the 90s, and ended up creating the defining acronym - CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats), which was excepted on November 21, 2001 as the appropriate moniker.One area where I feel the book falls short is in emphasizing personal stories at the expense of explaining the science thoroughly. A topic like this would benefit from a chapter like Melville's on Cetology (well maybe not exactly like Melville's); what I mean is the author should have inserted a chapter that was the equivalent of an introductory college class on mRNA, gene editing, etc, with illustrations. What we get in terms of illustrations is many, many pictures of scientists - replace about half of those with illustrative drawings of the various natural and man-made processes for gene editing, and those who are so inclined (I would be one) could study those and come to a clear understanding of the science and technology involved. Walter Isaacson is at heart a journalist, and he loves human interest stories; I love them to a point, and Doudna's story is inspiring and a great example for women who are interested in science, but Mr. Isaacson would have benefited from the ministrations of a much stricter editor; all that human interest stuff could be cut by a third and the story would not suffer. In my opinion. But then, I am a STEM guy at heart, so my tolerance for human interest stories is inherently limited.....;-) The Infinites don’t want to help but, if they don’t, there is a risk that their own identities will be made public, which would have devastating consequences. And so begins a dizzying and disorientating adventure that has them zigzagging across time, from 2050 to the Victorian great railway age.

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In prima jumatate a secolului XX fizica a fost revolutionata de teoriile lui Einstein si de mecanica cuantica. I'm giving this five stars because a) Isaacson maintained my interest throughout on a pretty complex and confusing topic and b) the research and c) so timely. My level of interest and enjoyment was more around a 3 1/2 star, but that had nothing to do with the quality of the book. The human gene pool has just been modified with pretty much no real understanding of the ramifications. Nonfiction Book Review: The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson". Publishers Weekly. January 26, 2021 . Retrieved March 18, 2021.

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Charpentier and Doudna are basic (not applied) researchers, working at public universities, and are as such, not so savvy in patent law and the patent application process. CRISPR-Cas9 systems can be ‘programmed’ relatively easily and inexpensively, to conduct ‘germline editing’ (i.e. insertion of designer DNA, or deletion of unwanted DNA) into the organism’s genetic code. We decant our babies as socialized human beings, as Alphas or Epsilons, as future sewage workers or future..." He was going to say "future World controllers," but correcting himself, said "future Directors of Hatcheries."' - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (as quoted in The Code Breaker) I'd imagine that it's pretty difficult to write a cohesive book about this topic, especially since it's all still evolving. However, the story didn't really feel like it was about Jennifer Doudna, but sort of an overview of how we got to the place we are with gene editing.

The Code Breaker - Wikipedia The Code Breaker - Wikipedia

The other concern that if allowed, everyone in the world may opt for children with uniform characteristics, hence reducing overall diversity. There is something fundamentally paternalistic and wrong if scientists feel that people should not have a choice. More importantly, the people are so diverse that it is difficult to expect everyone to go for the same option on almost any parameter. Plus, if everyone in the world wants to go for one solution - let's say to opt for removing all diseases - why should a handful of scientists resist that in the name of uniformization?

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I read The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race for a few reasons, one to have some talking points when people say nonsense about vaccines, and another because I always like to have a "respectable" book to talk to patients about so I don't have to reveal that I enjoy alien/human romances... He Jiankui was convicted and sentenced to prison for three years for violating a government ban on doing homespun experiments on human embryos. So in our current system we need both basic and applied research. And it would be nice if the the best of academia could pair with the best of industry to produce important stuff (like vaccines) in a hurry. I am glad to have finished all the four genius-&-geek biographies from Isaacson: da Vinci, Einstein, Steve Jobs, and finally Jennifer Doudna. Being a long time fan of his work, nothing could give me such pleasure. This book has been very timely - following Jennifer and Emmanuelle's 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry in last October. Patience Agbabi was born in London in 1965 to Nigerian parents, spent her teenage years living in North Wales and now lives in Kent with her husband and children. She has been writing poetry for over twenty years, The Infinite is her first novel. Like Elle, she loves sprinting, numbers and pepper soup, but, disappointingly, her leaping is less spectacular.

Breakers Series by Edward W. Robertson - Goodreads

I really enjoyed the story of how CRISPR was discovered. Isaacson puts a lot of onus on the trait of curiosity across all his biologies (Steve Jobs, Leonardo Da Vinci, etc). And Jennifer Doudna was only a pioneer and discoverer of CRISPR's uses because she was being curious and exploring the bounds of science. I will say that I'm not 100% clearly picturing how gene editing works despite the lengthy explanations. But I definitely understood the results. Isaacson leaves no aspect of this story unearthed. He describes the way research labs compete with each other, the various breakthroughs since mapping DNA, the personalities involved, the moral quandaries involved with manipulating genes, and how all this research ultimately enabled the development of the COVID vaccines.And this male v female, basic v applied, public v private showdown almost ended up in a very wounding and unsightly recapitulation of that famously uncool chapter of recent history. The race to prove that CRISPR-Cas9 could work in human cells became fierce, and was realised in roughly six months in five different labs within the scientific community. Although, admittedly, the scientific and technical jargon became difficult to follow at times, there was often an under thread of competition and excitement that kept me reading. It almost became a sport, and I was in the stands rooting for my team to be first to the finish.