Why "The Code Breaker" is the book you should read next

This Saturday, I finished reading the incredible The Code Breaker (Jennifer Doudna ,Jene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race) by Walter Isaacson. Not many books have been as thought-provoking and seminal as this one written by Isaacson, which charts development of the pathbreaking CRISPR technology that can edit DNA, and addresses a multitude of questions spanning the underlying technology. As I flipped through the final pages, inspired by the incredible story of CRISPR and Jennifer Doudna, it’s worthwhile to pen down a few of my reflections (three, specifically).?

But before I go there, I want you to jog your memory, maybe even back to your school days, and try to remember your science classes. Try to remember a specific memory when you learned something fascinating. Maybe it is the incredible mystery of blackholes, or the universality of Newton’s laws of motion in a classical sense, or the ease with which carbon bonds with other atoms that forms the basis of organic chemistry. You must have let out a “Wow” back then, and maybe even now. My recommendation is for you to continue being wow-ed, and maybe, give in to the curiosity and read this book. I know this is a long winded way of saying “I recommend you to read this book”. But I didn’t ask you to jog your memory just a few moments ago in vain; that was a just glimpse of many more moments you may have while reading the book.

Now, on to my reflections, in a set of three Cs:?

Curiosity:

The evolution of CRISPR (Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) as a tool to edit DNAs was not an idea someone just manifested one day and ran straight to their workbench to create in a moment of eureka. Without taking too much away from the book, CRISPR was borne out of curiosity and a hunger to understand how life at the microbiological and molecular level operates, learns, and ultimately improves. Scientists allowed their curiosity to take them on paths that didn’t appear to have immediate rewards, but eventually discovered a war that has been invisibly raging for a million years between bacteria and viruses. The secrets of the war were the first indicators of how genetic material evolves and inherits immunity. This led scientists to develop CRISPR technology, which has the potential of transforming medicine, and the threat of fundamentally altering humankind too (more on that in reflection#3). The takeaway essentially is to underline the importance of unbridled curiosity, which when combined with perseverance, can do wonders for us (and even reward you with the Nobel prize).

Competition:

Move over, oft-repeated wars like Cola Wars and streaming wars. It’s the scientist wars that define a whole new dimension. Well, not exactly wars, but an intense rivalry between various factions of scientists led by superstars like Jennifer Doudna and Feng Zhang who raced to discover, test, and publish the next breakthrough in CRISPR. If this sounds a bit too dramatic, it probably is, but no less breathtaking. The popular narrative has long stereotyped scientists as lab-coat wearing absent-minded individuals with an Einstein-like hairstyle, almost always men, lost in their own work in dusty old corners of universities.

Isaacson cuts through this myth with a razor-sharp account of two groups of world-renowned scientists across the two coasts of US. The first, led by Jennifer Doudna at Berkeley, and the second, led by Feng Zhang, at the Broad Institute in Boston. Both groups relentlessly raced to be the first to publish their findings in renowned journals like Nature and Science, made bold moves by forming biotech companies at the first potential of commercializing an invention, and passionately protected their knowledge by lawyering up and patenting what may be patented. What’s interesting is the role of universities that are perceived to have a benevolent face, but can be incredibly aggressive at capturing the credit for the breakthroughs on their campus. The opinion I formed is that however ugly or awkward, there is a necessity to combine research with industry, pure science with applied, and invention with production. Discoveries in labs need the rigour of commerce to propel them into therapies that can cure innumerable diseases plaguing us.

But this race needs an oversight too, as it blurs the limits of our understanding of emerging technologies and causes untoward actions that propel us into unknown, ultimately pushing us to have conversations on the ethics of these technologies. Such conversations in premature stages ?often bias us or worse, concoct fear and end up in outright ban. Sounds complex, right? That brings me to my next point.

Complexity:

Therapies using CRISPR have the potential of curing deadly disorders like sickle-cell anemia and Huntington’s syndrome by changing the genetic makeup of the patient’s somatic (non-reproductive) cells by editing out the disease-causing genes. However, it’s a completely different ballgame if we change the target of therapies to human embryo and get into the realm of germline editing.

Would you think it’s right to edit the genes of our progeny, thereby permanently altering their genetic makeup and that of all the subsequent generations? Won’t you think it’s a good idea if we can make them immune from HIV? What about obesity? Or wait, maybe height as well, as there is evidence of the height of a person correlated with their success, oh and throw in a ?pair of blue eyes too… Yes, as Isaacson aptly puts, it’s a slippery slope indeed.

The opinions on germline editing are acutely divided, ranging from those warning against playing God, to those who consider that it’s morally reprehensible not to use this technology to rid us of genetic diseases. It’s a fascinating and deeply unnerving topic that will continue to be in spotlight every time a news similar to that of CRISPR-babies in China emerges.

I would tend to err on the side of caution with germline editing for two reasons. Firstly, we don’t completely know the effects of germline editing yet. Remember that our genetic makeup is a result of millions of years of evolution and trillions of iterations, capturing vast amounts of evolutionary data. Tinkering with genetic makeup may have unintended consequences that we haven’t completely identified yet. Secondly, using this technology to enhance the human race can risk permanently codifying inequality in our society. With high costs and fewer options, access to CRISPR will be concentrated to only a select few wealthy at the start. Any enhancements to their progeny will further magnify the divide between them and the rest. It’s not hard to picture the result as a potential creation of two separate strata of society: the genetically enhanced, and the rest.

While it does have the flair of dystopian fiction made to scare us into banning CRISPR, I do not believe such broad-strokes characterization is right. Criticism for CRISPR can soon turn all-encompassing and rob us from making advances into treating genetic diseases. Identifying and promoting potentially life-saving use-cases of CRISPR while preventing a wild-west of enhancements will be an ongoing dialog that requires participation of everyone: the scientists, doctors, ethicists, policymakers, businesses, you, and me.?

How can you participate? A good start is to build your knowledge of this topic, and Walter Isaacson does a tremendous job of laying the foundation for this discussion that cannot afford to miss nuance. Moreover, the incredible story of Jennifer Doudna deserved such an account, as her work is an inflection-point in the field of biotechnology, and an inspiration for every youngster to pursue a career in STEM. So if you are looking to pick up the next book and challenge yourself to think through these complexities, and set yourself up for a topic that will only grow in relevance, I highly recommend The Code Breaker.?