“The Code Breaker” by Walter Isaacson

As a genetics researcher, I needed to get my hands on the new biography of Dr. Jennifer Doudna. She’s most well known for being one of the two scientists that discovered the gene editing tool CRISPR-Cas9. This revolution cannot really be overstated, it has made manipulating DNA much easier, and ushered in a new age of genetics. Plus she won a historic Nobel prize with her collaborator Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier recently. So, I really wanted to read about her and figure out what her path through science was like.

To be honest, the biography itself was a bit of a mixed bag for me. It’s written by Walter Isaacson who has profiled many great figures in his writing over the years. What kept throwing me off though was how he kept inserting himself into the narrative. Isaacson kept discussing his own impressions and experiences with the subjects or just the topic of genetics which continually took me out of the subject of the book.

In all fairness, as a non-scientist, many readers probably appreciated his self-inserts to explain his personal experiences and opinions. But I can’t help but think that there’s a way to discuss this without mentioning himself as an author so frequently. At the end of the day, I’m not reading this book for Isaacson’s thoughts, I want to read about Doudna!

Isaacson does do a terrific job explaining all of these complex concepts to just about any reader. There’s full chapters on the science behind these concepts and how it changes over the years. There’s also further chapters on the ethical implications of these innovations and all of the different people and players who have impacted it over the years. At times, it leans more towards a profile of the field rather than a book about Doudna, but I did find it all interesting and enlightening to show the world that she was working in.

Of course the pandemic features heavily into the book. It starts with Doudna calling a meeting of her collaborators to prepare for the pandemic, and ends with vaccines being developed. I can’t help but think that the ending is more of a cliffhanger than anything else. The whole field will have changed in several years, and I’ll probably have to buy another book. Doudna is still working and publishing, and I’m sure that she is far from done revolutionizing the field. We shall see.

To sum up, this is a really well written book about genetics and science that’s accessible to anyone, whether you are a scientist or not. But it’s not entirely a biography of Doudna as a profile of the current field of genetics and one man’s impression of it. If you haven’t read The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee I would probably recommend reading that first, since it isn’t as up to date as this book. The two, regardless, go really well together, and we love spreading knowledge about science and genes!