The Code Breaker
by Walter Isaacson, Kathe Mazur, Sarah Durand · first published 2001
60% recommend33% neutral7% critical
Why HN recommends it
Accessible biography of Jennifer Doudna and the CRISPR gene-editing story, praised as gripping and easy to read while grounded in facts; suits general readers curious about the science behind modern vaccines.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
A scientific biography of Jennifer Doudna, a founder and co-developer of the CRISPR gene-editing mechanism, and an examination of what happened after CRISPR hit the marketplace.
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- List for the lazy - A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence, by Jeff Hawkins. The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race, by Walter Isaacson. Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro. Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell. Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir.
on “Books I loved reading this year” ↗Walter Isaacson's The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race. Reading about how the Crispr and mRNA vaccine development happened was gripping.
on “Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?” ↗The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson is a recent biography of Jennifer Doudna, who won the Nobel Prize for her pioneering work on CRISPR, that you might enjoy
on “CRISPR Editing in Primates” ↗Flow matters as much as the content. Some people can just talk about X in a far more enjoyable manner than others. Isaacson is really good - his Jobs' biography, the Innovators, the Code Breaker - all are firmly footed in facts, but very easy and interesting to read. "Kitchen Confidentials", "Blind Man's Bluff" and "Seizing the Enigma" are really good in the same sense. Level down there are…
on “I wish I'd self-published sooner” ↗…Why DNA Matters for Social Equality by Kathryn Harden, a wonderful book on how hereditary IQ is, and why that is a good case for redistribution, given that IQ is so predictive of wealth/income - The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson, a biography of Jennifer Doudna, the woman who founded CRISPR and won the Nobel prize. Great read, thrilling. - My Struggle book 1, by Karl Ove Knausgård. Haven't finished this yet,…
on “Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?” ↗…my favorite this entire year is The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank's diary). Without a doubt one of the best books I have ever read, just through how supremely human it is. Other books are: -The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson -Sapiens by Yuval Yuval Noah Harari -21 Lessons for the 21st Century -Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feyn man!: Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard Feynman -Why Nations Fail…
on “Ask HN: Best books read in 2022” ↗Walter Isaacson's book "The Code Breaker" is about this subject. I couldn't put it down.
on “Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment” ↗If you're interested in learning more, the book Code Breaker is a great background to some of the steps that were taken to get us to where we are today! This work has been decades in the making :)
on “First gene therapy for Tay-Sachs disease successfully given to two children” ↗Cue the book "The Code Breaker" [0]. I read it a long time ago and such an incredible book and journey by Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuel Charpentier. Do check it out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Code_Breaker
on “Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment” ↗The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson attempts to chronicle this in detail. The narrative has UC/Doudna making the fundamental contributions. And that the leap to human cells was "trivial" made by Broad/Zhang. Anyone have…
on “US PTO rules against Univ of California, argues that Broad Inst invented CRISPR” ↗> The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race, by Walter Isaacson. The Nobel prize should have gone to Francis Mojica. Of course, he does not have all the PR machine that Doudna has,…
on “Books I loved reading this year” ↗Currently Reading: Code Breaker/Walter Issacson (current favorite author) Previous: Why we Sleep/Matthew Walker
on “Ask HN: Books You Read in 2021?” ↗Last year I read The Double Helix and The Code Breaker within a few months of each other, and what really stood out to me is that while we celebrate the first person who discovers something, in reality there were several teams all racing to the finish line,…
on “Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99” ↗If you are like me who read The Code Breaker you come here and read this article and say "I get it". Raise your hand!
on “Engineering of human cells reveals genome's resilience to structural changes” ↗just finished reading The Code Breaker, interesting stuff on Doudna & CRISPR
on “CRISPR Tech Selectively Shreds Cancer Cells, Including "Undruggable" Cancers” ↗