While the blog is on a relaxed summer schedule, you can read my book review of Jennifer Doudna’s and Samuel Sternberg’s CRISPR-related autobiography and discussion of the future of genome editing in University of Edinburgh’s Science Magazine EUSci issue #24.

The book is called A Crack in Creation, subtitled The New Power to Control Evolution, or depending on edition, Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution. There are a couple of dramatic titles for you. The book starts out similarly dramatic, with Jennifer Doudna dreaming of a beach in Hawaii, where she comes from, imagining a wave rising from the ocean to crash down on her. The wave is CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing, the technological force of nature that Doudna and colleagues have let loose on the world.

I like the book, talk about some notable omissions, and take issue with the bombastic and inaccurate title(s). Read the rest here.

Links

Pivotal CRISPR patent battle won by Broad Institute. Nature News. 2018.

Sharon Begley & Andrew Joseph. The CRISPR shocker: How genome-editing scientist He Jiankui rose from obscurity to stun the world. Stat News. 2018.

A Crack in Creation. The book’s website.