The Code Breaker -- Young Readers Edition: Jennifer Doudna and the Race to Understand Our Genetic Code

(Paperback)

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Walter Isaacsons #1New York Timesbestselling history of our third scientific revolution: CRISPR, gene editing, and the quest to understand the code of life itself, is now adapted for young readers!

When Jennifer Doudna was a sixth grader in Hilo, Hawaii, she came home from school one afternoon and found a book on her bed. It wasThe Double Helix, James Watsons account of how he and Francis Crick had discovered the structure of DNA, the spiral-staircase molecule that carries the genetic instruction code for all forms of life.

This book guided Jennifer Doudna to focus her studies not on DNA, but on what seemed to take a backseat in biochemistry: figuring out the structure of RNA, a closely related molecule that enables the genetic instructions coded in DNA to express themselves. Doudna became an expert in determining the shapes and structures of these RNA molecules an expertise that led her to develop a revolutionary new technique that could edit human genes.

Today gene-editing technologies such as CRISPR are already being used to eliminate simple genetic defects that cause disorders such as Tay-Sachs and sickle cell anemia. For now, however, Jennifer and her team are being deployed against our most immediate threatthe coronavirusand you have just been given a front row seat to that war.

Author Bio

Walter Isaacson is the bestselling author ofThe Code Breaker; Leonardo da Vinci;The Innovators;Steve Jobs;Einstein: His Life and Universe;Benjamin Franklin: An American Life;andKissinger: A Biography,and the coauthor ofThe Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made. He is a professor of history at Tulane and was CEO of the Aspen Institute, chair of CNN, and editor ofTime.Isaacson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2023. Visit him at Isaacson.Tulane.edu. Sarah Durandis aNew York Timesbestselling collaborator who works with celebrities, beauty and wellness experts, professional athletes, CEOs, and women with a mission. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and two daughters.