The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race

Jennifer Doudna (born February 19, 1964), the chief subject of Isaacson’s biography, is an American biochemist best known for her breakthrough work in CRISPR gene editing, for which she was awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry alongside Emmanuelle Charpentier. She is the Li Ka Shing Chancellor’s Chair Professor in the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. Doudna is also president and chair of the board of the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI). In 2015, Doudna was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people.

Growing up in Hilo, Hawaii, Doudna’s love for science was heavily inspired by the lush natural landscape around her. She went on to receive a PhD from Harvard in 1989, specializing in structural chemistry. Doudna is married to Berkeley professor Jamie Cate, with whom she has a son, Andrew.

The application of CRISPR in gene editing has been called one of the most important recent discoveries in biology. In 2012, Doudna and Charpentier found that the CRISPR-related Cas9 enzyme could be used to make targeted, precise edits in genetic material. The discovery quickly transformed the world of genetic engineering, opening new avenues for treating diseases.

In The Code Breaker, Doudna is presented as a scientist with a deep, avid sense of curiosity and a desire to see her work in application. Influenced by James Watson’s The Double Helix and her doctoral mentor Jack Szostak, she is unafraid to explore new scientific frontiers. Doudna also emerges as a formidable mentor, harnessing the talent of Rachel Haurwitz (CEO of Caribou Biosciences) and Martin Jinek (University of Zurich, Switzerland). Doudna’s measured temperament and forward-looking focus is apparent in her evolving views on gene editing. While she thinks germline gene editing should certainly be regulated, she is against placing a moratorium on the cutting-edge technology. Doudna also welcomes the involvement of other researchers in the field of science, which the coronavirus crisis has accelerated. She predicts, “The engagement of non-scientists of our work will achieve an incredibly interesting biotechnology revolution” (449).

Emmanuelle Charpentier (born December 11, 1968) is a French microbiologist who, along with Jennifer Doudna, won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on CRISPR gene-editing technology. Since 2015, Charpentier has been a director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin. In 2018, she founded an independent research institute, the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens. Charpentier is also the cofounder of the biotech firm CRISPR Therapeutics.

Raised in a Paris suburb, Charpentier earned a research doctorate in 1995 from the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Charpentier and Doudna decided to collaborate on CRISPR after meeting at a conference in Puerto Rico in 2011. Within the CRISPR-Cas9 discoveries, Charpentier is especially known for uncovering a small RNA called tracrRNA, which is essential in creating crRNA, the RNA that guides a scissors-like enzyme to cut up the genetic material of dangerous viruses.

Isaacson describes Charpentier as an “itinerant French biologist who had an alluring mix of mystery and Parisian insouciance” (125). Always on the move between cities and universities, Charpentier is set up as a foil for the more rooted Doudna, who has worked at her Berkeley lab since 2002. One of Charpentier’s most interesting qualities is that she likes placing herself in unfamiliar situations so she can gain a fresh perspective on science. In The Code Breaker, testimonies from fellow scientists suggest Charpentier, unlike Doudna, is wary of celebrity. However, Isaacson avoids such comparisons. Charpentier and Doudna have had a cooling-off since 2013, in part because Doudna’s patent application for using CRISPR in human cells did not include Charpentier. However, the two remain open to collaborating in the future.

Feng Zhang (born October 22, 1981) is an American biochemist famous for his work in CRISPR gene editing. Zhang currently holds the James and Patricia Poitras Professorship in Neuroscience at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and in the departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also a key member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

Born in China, Zhang moved to Des Moines at age 11 with his family and later received a PhD in chemical and biological engineering from Stanford University. He is on the board of the biotech firm Editas Medicine and is the cofounder of Sherlock Biosciences, well known for its CRISPR-enabled diagnostic tests. Zhang’s best-known contribution to the field of CRISPR has been in engineering a longer version of single-guide RNA that makes it more efficient at penetrating the nucleus of human cells.

In The Code Breaker, Zhang is set up as Doudna’s chief rival. Gentle in demeanor with a fiercely competitive core, Zhang battled with Doudna over the patent to use CRISPR-Cas9 technology in animal cells. Over the years, Zhang has allied with Eric Lander of the Broad Institute, who is critical of Doudna. Unlike Doudna, Zhang is firmly opposed to the idea of genetic editing in germline cells, as he believes it will enhance global inequality.

One of the most sensational American faces of gene editing, George Church (born August 28, 1954) is a geneticist and chemist. He is the Robert Winthrop Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, a professor of health sciences and technology at Harvard and MIT, and a founder of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.

Born and raised in Florida, Church began his PhD at Duke University but was dropped from the program since he spent so much time using X-ray crystallography in the lab that he failed to attend his other classes. Church eventually earned a PhD from Harvard Medical School.

Described by Isaacson as “tall and gangly […] both a gentle giant and mad scientist” (171), Church is known for proposing ambitious projects like using gene editing to revive the extinct wooly mammoth. In The Code Breaker, he is the most “collegial” of the foursome that includes Doudna, Charpentier, and Zhang. Church was the first to make significant progress in getting CRISPR-Cas9 to work in human cells. Despite his head start, he encouraged Doudna to publish her work in the same area, showing his generosity.

He Jiankui (born 1984) is a Chinese biophysicist and entrepreneur who received his PhD from Rice University in Texas. Jiankui is most known for his claim of creating the world’s first genetically edited babies, the twin girls Lulu and Nana (pseudonyms). Their 2018 birth was regarded as a violation of Chinese and international conventions on gene editing, and as a result, Jiankui was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment by the Shenzhen Nanshan District People’s Court. Additionally, he has been banned from research in biotechnology. Even so, he was listed as one of Time’s 100 most influential people of 2019.

Isaacson presents Jiankui as a scientist who did not make much of an impression on Doudna and others until his work in embryonic editing. Jiankui’s modus operandi is described as swagger-filled and secretive in parts, and he is shown to have a penchant of making grand announcements. His work on the embryos did not properly evaluate the long-term risks to Lulu and Nana, and may not even have worked, leading scientists to call it a “hack job.”

James Watson (born April 6, 1928) is an American geneticist world-renowned for his discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA in 1953. For his work on DNA, Watson, along with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962. Watson served as the director of Cold Water Spring Harbor Laboratory and is associated with starting the famous Human Genome Project. He is also the author of the best-selling book The Double Helix (1962).

Watson’s offensive views on gender, race, and intelligence have led to much controversy. Isaacson does not sugarcoat these views but presents Watson as factually as possible, leaving readers to make their own judgments. Doudna, who considers Watson a role model of sorts, is also disturbed by his views, but she accepts him in his complexity.