The CRISPR Challenge
CRISPR, since we last talked about it, has won a Nobel prize for the two scientists who first figured out how to apply the miracle molecule to the human genome and the human condition. And just this week, from our guest, the tireless biographer Walter Isaacson, CRISPR gets heroic treatment in hard covers for the same breakthrough biologists. For most of us, the acronym CRISPR is code for the deepest issues we don’t know how to talk about. But Walter Isaacson could change that some, as the irresistible storyteller about the kinds of people Apple puts on its “Think Different” billboards: Ben Franklin and Albert Einstein, Apple’s own Steve Jobs, and back a few centuries Leonardo da Vinci, the original Renaissance man. The new Isaacson epic, titled The Code Breaker, centers on the first woman and only the second living person in Isaacson’s Hall of Fame. His subtitle is Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race.
Episode link here.