生命科学
The Code Breaker 豆瓣 Goodreads
7.6 (5 个评分) 作者: Walter Isaacson Simon & Schuster 2021 - 3
The bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs returns with a gripping 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 co-discovery 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 a thrilling detective tale that involves the most profound wonders of nature, from the origins of life to the future of our species.
2022年5月10日 已读
不得不说Walter Isaacson是真的很会写,他的传记涉及到的领域跨越了艺术(达芬奇)、电子产品(乔布斯)到生命科学(道德纳),但是在知识性方面从来不露怯,very informative。不过我对生命科学方面了解太少,对这本里真正涉及到科普的部分属于囫囵吞枣了,第一次知道原来科学研究领域的竞争原来这么激烈……Doudna和Charpentier身上值得关注的地方,除了对curiosity-driven science的执着,还有(对女性来说尤为重要的)竞争性和锋芒,一味的妥协和谦卑不是她们的美德,争强好胜和不达目的誓不罢休的心态让她们走到了今天的位置。另外这本书里有关基因编辑领域的道德讨论很深入,也比较客观,值得看。
传记 生命科学