The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race

by Walter Isaacson

Because of its small size and highly specific targeting capability, the Cas13d that Hsu discovered was chosen by Qi as the best enzyme to target the coronavirus in human lung cells. In the competition to come up with good acronyms, Qi scored high. He dubbed his system PAC-MAN, which he had extracted from “prophylactic antiviral CRISPR in human cells.” The name was that of the chomping character in the once popular video game. “I like video games,” Qi told Wired’s Steven Levy. “The Pac-Man tries to eat cookies, and it is chased by a ghost. But when it encounters a specific kind of cookie called the power cookie—in our case a CRISPR-Cas13 design—suddenly it turns itself to be so powerful. It can start eating the ghost and start cleaning up the whole battlefield.”15