3D depicts DNA spirals.
According to Walter Isaacson, three great technological revolutions have shaped the modern world, based on three fundamental seeds of human existence: the atom, the bit, and the gene. After examining the physics revolution through the eyes of Einstein and the digital revolution via Apple’s greatest leader, Steve Jobs, the best-selling biographer thought it was time to go to DNA. It is therefore no surprise that he chose Jennifer Doudna, the co-discoverer of CRISPR gene editing technology, to convey the story of how the human species has seized its own evolutionary destiny.
Isaacson’s latest book, The code breaker, follows breathlessly Doudna from a childhood that wandered through the wilderness of Hawaii to her pioneering work of deploying a bacterial defense system to rewrite the code of life – and the bitter patent battle that followed – and ultimately the ultimate credit, the Nobel Prize, to be won. The book is based on more than five years of reporting on the front lines of the DNA hack wars and is a deep dive into the fascinating science of gene editing and the personal dramas that unfold behind the discoveries. Even if you think you know the story of CRISPR, you do not know it as Isaacson does.
He spoke to WIRED from his home in New Orleans, where he is now Professor of History at Tulane University. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
WIRED: The biotechnology revolution did not start with CRISPR or with Doudna. So why her?
Walter Isaacson: Jennifer Doudna’s journey begins in sixth grade when her father leaves The double helix, by James Watson, on her bed and she realizes it’s actually a detective story. This is what she desires to be a scientist. And even after her companion told her that girls do not do science, she persisted. Then she helped determine the structure of a type of RNA that could answer one of the biggest questions of all: how did life on this planet begin? And then her RNA studies lead her to CRISPR and the discovery that it may be a tool for editing genes, the extent of which leads her to gather scientists to work through the moral issues on how to use such a discovery. must be.
My father gave me The double helix when I was also in high school. And even though I was always interested in biochemistry, I always regretted not taking it beyond a few courses at university. There is joy in understanding how something works, especially when the thing is ourselves. While there are all sorts of amazing characters that could have been the focus of this book, Doudna’s life journey just seemed like it would be a compelling storyline through this long history of scientists trying to understand what makes us human.
You do not hesitate to compile Doudna’s battle with the Broad Institute about CRISPRr credit as a contemporary parallel to Rosalind Franklin’s own struggle to be recognized for her contributions to the discovery of the structure of DNA. Was it intentional?
What Doudna did is unlock the mysteries of life with the same mindset as Rosalind Franklin, that is, the structure of a molecule is the clue you as a detective need to figure out how it’s really going to work. When Doudna and Charpentier won the Nobel Prize, a bit of vision flashed in my mind at Franklin with a stern but satisfied smile on her face.
So you start writing about Jennifer Doudna, and the next thing you know, she wins the Nobel Prize. Coincidence?
Despite what people think about rigid electoral systems, I can not take on the voting process of the Swedish Academy. I thought it was too early for CRISPR. I mean, it’s only been eight years since Doudna and Charpentier’s landmark page. But the morning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was to be announced, I still set my alarm for four o’clock so I could listen to the live stream. And when I heard the announcement, I let out a holler. The funny thing is that Doudna actually slept through the phone calls from Stockholm. When I spoke to her a few hours later, she told me that she only learned after the fact of her victory, of a reporter who called to comment.
That moment was in many ways the culmination of a years-long clash over who deserves credit for transforming CRISPR from a biological curiosity to one of the most powerful technologies ever invented. What was it like trying to capture it?
Everyone I spoke to was very generous. Feng Zhang, who is the main competitor for patents and prizes, is one of the most charming, open and interesting people you would ever meet. I was a little worried when I met him because I was writing about people who were his competitors, but he could not have been nicer.
And so I think access has helped me show that science is a real human endeavor that often involves a lot of competition – for patents, prizes, and recognition. Competition is a good thing. It encourages us. This was true in the competition between Intel and Texas Instruments to develop the microchip. And that was true with CRISPR. But what is also true is that all these scientists, when COVID struck, set aside the race for patents and focused their attention on fighting the coronavirus and quickly placing their discoveries in the public domain, so that everyone in used the fight.
So my hope for the book is that it shows the mix of competition and collaboration that is at the heart of science. And the fact that, even though they are real people with egos and ambitions, they – more than most people – correctly realize that they are part of a noble endeavor that has a higher purpose. I hope everyone in the book becomes a hero in their own way, because that’s them.
You were in the middle of reporting on this book when something seismic happened in the world of CRISPR. In 2018, a Chinese scientist named He Jiankui revealed he not only edited human embryos, but also pregnancies started with them, leading to the birth of twin girls. How did this affect the trajectory of the story you were trying to tell?
It really became an important turning point in the story. Because now all these scientists had to wrestle with the moral implications of what they helped create. But then things changed again when the coronavirus struck. I was working on the book for another year to look at the players when they tackled this pandemic. And that actually got me thinking about CRISPR.
how so?
I think I sometimes felt visceral resistance to the idea that we could modify the human genome, especially in a hereditary way. But that has changed for me and for Doudna as we meet more and more people who are themselves plagued by horrible genetic problems or who have children who suffer from it. And when our species was hit by a deadly virus, it opened me up more to the idea that we should use the talents we have to thrive and be healthy. So I’m now more open to gene editing that is done for medical purposes, whether it’s sickle cell anemia, Huntington’s or Tay-Sachs, or even to increase our resistance to viruses and other pathogens and cancer.
SIMON AND SCHUSTER
I still have concerns. One is that I do not want gene editing to be something that only the rich can afford, and it leads to the coding of inequalities in our societies. And, secondly, I want to make sure that we do not diminish the wonderful diversity that exists within the human species.
Do you have any ideas for doing this?
I wrestled the last few chapters of my book with the question. And I hope not to preach, but to allow the reader to go along with me and Jennifer Doudna and find out for themselves what their hopes and fears are about this so-called brave new world in which we all walk together. I once had a mentor say there are two kinds of people who come from Louisiana: preachers and storytellers. He said, “Be a storyteller, for heaven’s sake, because the world has too many preachers.”
By telling the story of CRISPR in all its scientific triumphs and rivalry and excitement, I hope to apply people to science. But I also want to make them more capable of wrestling with one of the most important questions we face as a society over the next few decades: when we can program molecules like we program microchips, what do we want? to do with this fire that we have snatched away from the gods?
This story first appeared on wired.com.