Image: Wall Street Journal
From The Wall Street Journal:

What Gene Editing Can Do for Humankind

In the spring of 2014, Jennifer Doudna had a nightmare.

The Berkeley biochemist had helped to invent a powerful new technology that made it possible to edit the human genome—an achievement that made her the recipient of a Nobel Prize in 2020. The innovation was based on a trick that bacteria have used for more than a billion years to fight off viruses, a talent very relevant to us humans these days. In their DNA, bacteria develop clustered, repeated sequences (what scientists call CRISPRs) that can recognize and then chop up viruses that attack them. Dr. Doudna and others adapted the system to create a tool that can edit DNA—opening up the potential for curing genetic diseases, creating healthier babies, inventing new vaccines, and helping humans to fight their own wars against viruses.

But Dr. Doudna’s nightmare didn’t concern these happy prospects. In it, she was asked to meet someone who wanted to learn about CRISPR. When she entered the room for the meeting, she recoiled: Sitting in front of her was Adolf Hitler with the face of a pig. “I want to understand the uses and implications of this amazing technology you’ve developed,” he said.

Bestselling author and educator Walter Isaacson will be appearing at the 2022 RMWF. His latest book is The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race.

When Jennifer Doudna was in sixth grade, she came home one day to find that her dad had left a paperback titled The Double Helix on her bed. She put it aside, thinking it was one of those detective tales she loved. When she read it on a rainy Saturday, she discovered she was right, in a way. She became enthralled by the intense drama behind the competition to discover the code of life. Even though her high school counselor told her girls didn’t become scientists, she decided she would. Driven by a passion to understand how nature works and to turn discoveries into inventions, Doudna would make the most important biological advance since the discovery of the structure of DNA. She and her collaborators turned a curiosity of nature into an invention that will transform the human race: an easy-to-use tool that can edit DNA. Known as CRISPR, it opened a brave new world of medical miracles and moral questions.