96 pages • 3 hours read
Walter IsaacsonA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
In March 2020, the University of California in Berkeley shut down its campus as the coronavirus pandemic spread across the globe. Jennifer Doudna—the Berkeley scientist who has played a pivotal role in inventing the gene-editing technology called CRISPR—rushed to an indoor convention center to pick up her only son, Andy, before he could participate in a robot-building competition along with hundreds of other high school seniors. Instinctively, Doudna knew the world was going to change forever. The next day, Friday, March 13, Doudna and a dozen colleagues gathered on the abandoned Berkeley campus to virtually brainstorm with 50 other scientists on the role they could play in combating the pandemic.
Doudna’s team immediately began work on creating a coronavirus testing lab and developing new coronavirus tests based on CRISPR. The team embarked on 10 such projects, but none of the projects focused on one of the long-term implications of CRISPR: Could the gene-editing technology be used to engineer inheritable genes in future generations that made them less vulnerable to viral attacks? Doudna dismissed the possibility to author Walter Isaacson in an interview. However, Isaacson believes that the possibility is more feasible than Doudna acknowledged at the time.
By Walter Isaacson
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
Walter Isaacson
Einstein: His Life and Universe
Einstein: His Life and Universe
Walter Isaacson
Elon Musk
Elon Musk
Walter Isaacson
Leonardo Da Vinci
Leonardo Da Vinci
Walter Isaacson
Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs
Walter Isaacson
The Innovators
The Innovators
Walter Isaacson
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection