Simon & Schuster The Code Breaker

In the book, Slave Species of the Gods, Michael Tellinger wrote that the Annunnaki created homo sapiens by gene splicing and editing DNA between themselves and a hominin such as Homo Erectus.I heard about CRISPR one night, on CBC radio, on my way home from work doing the night shift. I wanted to know what exactly CRISPR is and what could its application be used for.Ms. Doudna is an extraordinary woman whose love for science is incredibly vast. Evert girl should learn about her journey through life and the challenges of being a female in the science world.I highly recommend this book. It is a real page turner.I plan on getting a copy to give to my grand-daughters.

Um dos melhores livros biográficos que li nos últimos anos!

How to take a completely fascinating topic and make it boring and dull. The text glosses over the discoveries in genetics and the lives of the scholars who unraveled them, resulting in an experience where you learn nothing from either. I couldn’t finish it, frustrated by the feeling of having wasted my time. I can't believe anyone edited this.

So interesting and well written, I loved that book, going to order more of Mr Isaacson's book now :)

Whenever I see Walter Isaacson has a new book out, I think two things: it’s going to be a good book, and it’s going to occupy a lot of my free time. I enjoyed reading this book. I found it relatively easy to read even though it took me a few weeks. This is the only book of his I’ve ever finished.The book mainly focuses on Jennifer Doudna and the advent of gene editing with CRISPR technology. Major scientific advances are fueled by the collaboration of many different people, and not just one. She, however, seemed to be the biggest and most level-headed player, and as a result, shared the Nobel prize with Emmanuelle Charpentier. One of Isaacson’s previous books, The Innovators, took the approach on focusing on many different scientists, but it didn’t hold my attention for long. Focusing on Doudna made the topic more personable and enjoyable. The book also covered more current events rather than historical ones. I loved reading it.The science can be complex, but it felt like the author didn’t go any deeper than he needed to get the point across. He would also take the time to summarize the fundamentals discussed periodically. The book also gave insight into the legal intricacies of how they published their papers and were granted patents. The author also seemed to cover every ethical viewpoint and how the ethics evolved but with none of the stupid politics. I really enjoyed that. Although the focus was on Doudna, the author remained objective and did not take her side on everything. For example, she did not care much for her competitive rivals Eric Landers and Feng Zhang; however, Isaacson thought highly of them and made a point of explicitly saying so.Jennifer Doudna doesn’t really seem to have the same superhero status as some of Walter Isaacson’s other subjects like Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo DaVinci, and Steve Jobs. Or maybe she does. It was hard to keep up with this topic by trying to follow the news over the past few years because there has been so much garbage in the news that it was hard to get a good context on anything important. I found this book to be a good summary of everything that’s been happening in the field of CRISPR and gene editing over the past few years without the distractions. I highly recommend it.