Since the 1970's, scientists have discovered three key methods for understanding and working with the genome: The history of genetics has suffered from the ebbs and flows and the promises and disappointments that come with the iterative nature of scientific discovery. So, given its fundamental importance in life, the quest to understand, decode and tinker with the genome is often dubbed as the holy grain of biology. Its genes - sequences of those DNA letters - encode the information needed to produce the proteins that perform most of the functions of the body. The human genome, made up of 3.2 billion letters of DNA arranged in a double helix, has long been the object of study and awe by the scientific community.
Our attempts at controlling the genomeĭoudna begins the book with a short history of genomics. Jennifer Doudna, Professor and Chair at the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at Berkley, is the co-author of A Crack in Creation, the canonical book on the revolutionary technology behind gene editing. And with several billion dollars invested in startups and research teams targeting all-things genome, the technology is rapidly catching the world's attention.
For billions of years, our biological destiny has been dictated by nature, expressed in Darwin's theory of evolution, where random genetic mutations shape the advances of our biological systems.ĬRISPR, a breakthrough technology for gene editing, promises to put humans in control. The power of controlling human evolution has long been an endeavour reserved to realm of science fiction. She also asks us to consider what our new-found power means: how do we enjoy its unprecedented benefits while avoiding its equally unprecedented dangers? 'The future is in our hands as never before, and this book explains the stakes like no other' George Lucas 'One of the most PIONEERING women in science. Writing with fellow researcher Samuel Sternberg, here she provides the definitive account of her discovery, explaining how this wondrous invention works and what it is capable of. Jennifer Doudna is the co-inventor of this technology - known as CRISPR - and a scientist of worldwide renown. As a result, dreams of genetic manipulation have become a stark reality: the power to cure disease and alleviate suffering, as well as to re-design any species, including humans, for our own ends. It is an invention that allows us to rewrite the genetic code that shapes and controls all living beings. This book is about the most recent and potentially the most powerful and dangerous of them all. 'AN INSTANT CLASSIC' Siddhartha Mukherjee A handful of discoveries have changed the course of human history. World-famous scientist Jennifer Doudna - winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for creating the revolutionary gene-editing technique CRISPR - explains her discovery, describes its power to reshape the future of all life and warns of its use.
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