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

by Walter Isaacson

She thought about changing her major to French. “I went to talk to my French teacher about that, and she asked what I was majoring in.” When Doudna replied that it was chemistry, the teacher told her to stick with it. “She was really insistent. She said ‘If you major in chemistry you’ll be able to do all sorts of things. If you major in French you will be able to be a French teacher.’ ”

Barrangou was born in Paris, which gave him an enthusiasm for food. He also loved science, and in college he decided to combine his passions. He became the only person I’ve ever encountered who moved from France to North Carolina in order to learn more about food.

A portrait painting of a smiling Boyer appeared on the cover of Time with the headline “The Boom in Genetic Engineering.” It came out the same week that Prince Charles of England picked Diana to be his princess, an event that, in those more rarefied times for journalism, received only a secondary mention on the magazine’s cover.

Would it be different if, instead of using a deaf sperm donor, the couple had used preimplantation diagnosis to select an embryo that had the genetic mutation for deafness? What if the embryo was typical, but they edited it to be deaf? Would that be okay? What if they asked a doctor to punch out the child’s eardrums after birth?

Suppose there was a genetic edit that could add eight inches to a kid’s height. Would it be proper to use it on a boy who would otherwise be under five feet tall to turn him into someone of average height? What about using it on a boy who would otherwise be average height to make him six-foot-five?

Twitter, unsurprisingly, is not the best forum to discuss bioethics.