--- product_id: 431754466 title: "The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race" price: "£17.27" currency: GBP in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/431754466-the-code-breaker-jennifer-doudna-gene-editing-and-the-future store_origin: GB region: United Kingdom --- # The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race **Price:** £17.27 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race - **How much does it cost?** £17.27 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.co.uk](https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/431754466-the-code-breaker-jennifer-doudna-gene-editing-and-the-future) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description A Best Book of 2021 by Bloomberg BusinessWeek , Time , and The Washington Post The bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs returns with a “compelling” ( The Washington Post ) account of how Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues launched a revolution that will allow us to cure diseases, fend off viruses, and have healthier babies. 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. As she sped through the pages, 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, she would help to make what the book’s author, James Watson, told her was the most important biological advance since his codiscovery 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. The development of CRISPR and the race to create vaccines for coronavirus will hasten our transition to the next great innovation revolution. The past half-century has been a digital age, based on the microchip, computer, and internet. Now we are entering a life-science revolution. Children who study digital coding will be joined by those who study genetic code. Should we use our new evolution-hacking powers to make us less susceptible to viruses? What a wonderful boon that would be! And what about preventing depression? Hmmm…Should we allow parents, if they can afford it, to enhance the height or muscles or IQ of their kids? After helping to discover CRISPR, Doudna became a leader in wrestling with these moral issues and, with her collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier, won the Nobel Prize in 2020. Her story is an “enthralling detective story” ( Oprah Daily ) that involves the most profound wonders of nature, from the origins of life to the future of our species. Review: A Text That Even An English Major Can Appreciate - Though I gave this a 5-star review, It's not perfect. But for the sheer breadth and depth of information on Doudna and this topic, the book deserves full credit. Also, this book discusses complex scientific information with clarity and insight so that even an English major (word perp) can enjoy the discussion of the process and have their curiosity satisfied about gene editing, not an easy task -- but one that Isaacson does quite well. I also love the evolution of discovery that Isaacson describes, and I love that he introduces the reader to all those participating as he tells this story, Doudna's story. He also describes the brutal competition of scientists and researchers and the dynamic of collaboration in that community. But he notes the change that occurred during and after the pandemic. As a reader, I had a true sense of how all the pieces fit together after I read this book. Isaacson addresses the "elephant in the room" in detail by discussing the potential benefit and horror of gene editing for humankind. He does this in a way with provocative questions and answers that reveals a careful and methodical researcher who has a good understanding of what's at stake. He distinguishes between "treatment and enhancement" with precision. Last, I love how he inserts Doudna's actions, reactions, and dialogue into this story in which she is the lead protagonist. He does a careful job of uncovering uncomfortable issues that occurred along the way of discovery. I'm left with the impression that Jennifer Doudna is a singular ethical and brilliant research scientist who has paved and continues to pave the way for young scientists, especially young women, to change the world, even as she has. In discussing the different facets of collaboration, before and after Mar 2020, I love that he emphasizes the importance of a cross-discipline approach and how various perspectives and experiences contribute to discovery. My only two complaints (and these may seem overly critical) are that Isaacson seems to be overly accommodating to certain men in the book who had sexist tendencies or who were more rogue than research, but I think he does this to show extreme objectivity. Sometimes, though, his commentary was too opinionated and complimentary, to make up for being objective, when it was best to let the reader come to their own conclusions. I didn't need to be told how wonderful this person was even though they had just shown themselves or even though they had just said or did something unethical. The other complaint is that Isaacson describes so much about his own life and opinions that whenever I read them, I would develop a twitch. I wanted to say, "Dude, how do you give your opinion without giving your opinion?" That's Reporting 101. And he didn't really have to describe a person's physicality quite so much. Do we really need to know about someone's "chipmunk-cheeked round face"? But I forgive him and recommend this book 100%. One more thing, I love the he ends the book by describing a repaired exchange between Doudna and Charpentier. And I love that he gives full credit to Rosalind Franklin, and I love the spirit of hopefulness of what's possible for future generations that he leaves the reader with. Review: An Overview Of The CRISPR Revolution - A biological revolution is occurring right now, one expected to be as impactful as the digital revolution. This book tells the story of that revolution and the players in it, especially Jennifer Doudna and her co-workers who discovered the breakthrough that allows CRISPR to exist and gives it the potential to fix defects in cells. Doudna was determined to be a scientist from her teen years after reading James Watson's account of discovering and mapping human DNA. After college and her doctorate, she became interested in RNA and with the help of others was able to use it to cut out defective strings in DNA and replace it with the correct sequence. She and her French partner, another woman named Emmanuelle Charpentier won the Nobel Prize for this discovery and others in the field. But all is not rosy in the CRISPR world. Although science has made breakthroughs throughout history due to collaboration and shared research, the awarding or prizes and patents has made the scientific world more capitalistic. Doudna beat out another team from Boston headed by Zheng Fang, by only a slight margin and tension between the two labs has continued for years. There are many benefits to this discovery. Genetic diseases such as sickle cell anemia and Huntington's disease, which are caused by a single gene defect now have hopes of being cured. The work can be used to increase plant production and farm productivity, making food security more of a reachable goal. Cancer is another frontier that could benefit and only yesterday I read about CRISPR making breakthroughs in ALS, a degenerative nerve disease. There are also ethical problems. One of the biggest is the decision to either work on genes that exist in a living person, which benefits that individual or using CRISPR to change inheritable DNA, which changes the entire human genome forever more. Is changing our genome something the human race is prepared to do without knowing all the repercussions it can cause? This is the field for enhancements such as greater muscle strength, appearance, and perhaps intelligence. Who would pay for this? Would it stretch the gap between poor and rich even further as the rich choose to give their children advantages poorer parents could only dream of? Walter Issacson has been a journalist for many years, working on magazines such as Time. In recent years, he has worked on biographies of scientists in breaking news fields such as Steve Jobs and Einstein and those involved in the digital revolution. He also has written works on Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin and Henry Kissinger. His work is detailed and he explains the science of the CRISPR world in a way that those not in the field can understand readily. This book is recommended for nonfiction readers. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #16,211 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #6 in Genetics (Books) #16 in Scientist Biographies #72 in Women's Biographies | | Customer Reviews | 4.7 out of 5 stars 13,840 Reviews | ## Images ![The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/713i0FtSdwL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A Text That Even An English Major Can Appreciate *by S***N on May 24, 2022* Though I gave this a 5-star review, It's not perfect. But for the sheer breadth and depth of information on Doudna and this topic, the book deserves full credit. Also, this book discusses complex scientific information with clarity and insight so that even an English major (word perp) can enjoy the discussion of the process and have their curiosity satisfied about gene editing, not an easy task -- but one that Isaacson does quite well. I also love the evolution of discovery that Isaacson describes, and I love that he introduces the reader to all those participating as he tells this story, Doudna's story. He also describes the brutal competition of scientists and researchers and the dynamic of collaboration in that community. But he notes the change that occurred during and after the pandemic. As a reader, I had a true sense of how all the pieces fit together after I read this book. Isaacson addresses the "elephant in the room" in detail by discussing the potential benefit and horror of gene editing for humankind. He does this in a way with provocative questions and answers that reveals a careful and methodical researcher who has a good understanding of what's at stake. He distinguishes between "treatment and enhancement" with precision. Last, I love how he inserts Doudna's actions, reactions, and dialogue into this story in which she is the lead protagonist. He does a careful job of uncovering uncomfortable issues that occurred along the way of discovery. I'm left with the impression that Jennifer Doudna is a singular ethical and brilliant research scientist who has paved and continues to pave the way for young scientists, especially young women, to change the world, even as she has. In discussing the different facets of collaboration, before and after Mar 2020, I love that he emphasizes the importance of a cross-discipline approach and how various perspectives and experiences contribute to discovery. My only two complaints (and these may seem overly critical) are that Isaacson seems to be overly accommodating to certain men in the book who had sexist tendencies or who were more rogue than research, but I think he does this to show extreme objectivity. Sometimes, though, his commentary was too opinionated and complimentary, to make up for being objective, when it was best to let the reader come to their own conclusions. I didn't need to be told how wonderful this person was even though they had just shown themselves or even though they had just said or did something unethical. The other complaint is that Isaacson describes so much about his own life and opinions that whenever I read them, I would develop a twitch. I wanted to say, "Dude, how do you give your opinion without giving your opinion?" That's Reporting 101. And he didn't really have to describe a person's physicality quite so much. Do we really need to know about someone's "chipmunk-cheeked round face"? But I forgive him and recommend this book 100%. One more thing, I love the he ends the book by describing a repaired exchange between Doudna and Charpentier. And I love that he gives full credit to Rosalind Franklin, and I love the spirit of hopefulness of what's possible for future generations that he leaves the reader with. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ An Overview Of The CRISPR Revolution *by S***D on January 3, 2023* A biological revolution is occurring right now, one expected to be as impactful as the digital revolution. This book tells the story of that revolution and the players in it, especially Jennifer Doudna and her co-workers who discovered the breakthrough that allows CRISPR to exist and gives it the potential to fix defects in cells. Doudna was determined to be a scientist from her teen years after reading James Watson's account of discovering and mapping human DNA. After college and her doctorate, she became interested in RNA and with the help of others was able to use it to cut out defective strings in DNA and replace it with the correct sequence. She and her French partner, another woman named Emmanuelle Charpentier won the Nobel Prize for this discovery and others in the field. But all is not rosy in the CRISPR world. Although science has made breakthroughs throughout history due to collaboration and shared research, the awarding or prizes and patents has made the scientific world more capitalistic. Doudna beat out another team from Boston headed by Zheng Fang, by only a slight margin and tension between the two labs has continued for years. There are many benefits to this discovery. Genetic diseases such as sickle cell anemia and Huntington's disease, which are caused by a single gene defect now have hopes of being cured. The work can be used to increase plant production and farm productivity, making food security more of a reachable goal. Cancer is another frontier that could benefit and only yesterday I read about CRISPR making breakthroughs in ALS, a degenerative nerve disease. There are also ethical problems. One of the biggest is the decision to either work on genes that exist in a living person, which benefits that individual or using CRISPR to change inheritable DNA, which changes the entire human genome forever more. Is changing our genome something the human race is prepared to do without knowing all the repercussions it can cause? This is the field for enhancements such as greater muscle strength, appearance, and perhaps intelligence. Who would pay for this? Would it stretch the gap between poor and rich even further as the rich choose to give their children advantages poorer parents could only dream of? Walter Issacson has been a journalist for many years, working on magazines such as Time. In recent years, he has worked on biographies of scientists in breaking news fields such as Steve Jobs and Einstein and those involved in the digital revolution. He also has written works on Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin and Henry Kissinger. His work is detailed and he explains the science of the CRISPR world in a way that those not in the field can understand readily. This book is recommended for nonfiction readers. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Good reading about groundbreaking science and scientists loosely packaged as an Isaacson biography *by C***H on March 18, 2021* This is an important book, but it is not a typical Isaacson biography. As the subtitle admits, it is a broader story about the science and scientists of gene editing and their impact on the human race. Like Isaacson's "pure" biographies, it is well-written and solidly-researched. Unlike those books, this one provides vignettes of many of the other scientists who collaborated with and competed against the principal subject, Jennifer Doudna. In doing so, it provides valuable insights into how scientific discoveries move from basic science to applied science. It also shows the international scale of those contributions and competitions. Photographs sprinkled across the book humanize the subjects and reinforce their diversity. The book also demonstrates how academic science is merging with startup companies today. Those aspects alone make this book valuable reading in our current age. Isaacson does an admirable job of explaining the science to a broad range of readers, although there were times I would have appreciated some additional depth on the more important concepts. (There were also times when I felt he was providing too much detail on the peripheral players.) A less well known author might not have classified this book as a biography. To benefit from Isaacson's well-deserved reputation for his biographies, the book properly emphasizes Jennifer Doudna, who shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with her former collaborator and competitor, Emmanuelle Charpentier. Doudna is fascinating subject and a wonderful role model for anyone interested in science, especially girls and women. Because of the book's broader sweep, we learn less about Doudna than we might have in a typical biography, which was a disappointment. Although the breakthroughs the book describes will change the world, I was disappointed in Isaacson's treatment of two areas: First, while I appreciated his coverage of the moral and social justice questions surrounding human intervention in inheritable genetic traits, I found his personal views unnecessary and distracting. Second, I thought he shortchanged the additional invention needed to move gene editing forward. His cheerleading for Doudna and the other biotech scientists was appropriate and his demonstration of how easy gene hacking can be was a good warning for all of us. But much more will be required to make gene editing as safe and practical as it will need to be, particularly for edits that affect humanity's gene pools. Even a few more pages of foresight on those topics would have been appreciated. Overall, this is an important book that deserves reading. It's also a clever effort by a brilliant biographer to market a broader story under the guise of a more traditional biography. ## Frequently Bought Together - The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race - Leonardo da Vinci - Elon Musk --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/431754466-the-code-breaker-jennifer-doudna-gene-editing-and-the-future](https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/431754466-the-code-breaker-jennifer-doudna-gene-editing-and-the-future) --- *Product available on Desertcart United Kingdom* *Store origin: GB* *Last updated: 2026-05-14*