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

by Walter Isaacson

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory was founded in 1890 based on a belief in the magic of in-person meetings. The formula is to attract interesting people to an idyllic locale and provide them with opportunities to interact, including at a nice bar. The beauty of nature and the joy that comes from unstructured human engagement is a powerful combination. Even when they don’t interact—such as when an awed young Jennifer Doudna passes the aging icon Barbara McClintock on a path through the Cold Spring Harbor campus—people benefit from an atmosphere that is charged in a way that sparks creativity. One of the transformations wrought by the coronavirus pandemic is that more meetings in the future will be done virtually. It’s a shame. If COVID doesn’t kill us, Zoom will. As Steve Jobs emphasized when he built a headquarters for Pixar and planned a new Apple campus, new ideas are born out of serendipitous encounters. In-person interactions are especially important in the initial brainstorming of new ideas and the forging of personal bonds. As Aristotle taught, we are a social animal, an instinct that cannot fully be satisfied online. Nevertheless, there will be an upside to the fact that the coronavirus has expanded how we work together and share ideas. By hastening the Age of Zoom, the pandemic will broaden the horizons of scientific collaboration, allowing it to be even more global and crowdsourced. A walk along the cobblestone streets of San Juan was the catalyst for the collaboratio...