The Codebreaker

Walter Isaacson, the author of best-selling biographies of Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, and many others, tells how Jennifer Doudna and other scientists began a revolutionary process that will allow us to fight diseases even more effectively, defeat viruses, and raise healthier offspring. The genome-editing tool developed by Doudna and her colleagues, CRISPR, is already being used to treat sickle cell anemia, cancer, and blindness. In 2020, Doudna and her teams began exploring how CRISPR can detect and destroy coronaviruses. In the same year, Doudna and her co-author Emmanuelle Charpentier were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.