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

by Walter Isaacson

From my balcony, I marveled at the diversity of the passing humanity. There were people short and tall, gay and straight and trans, fat and skinny, light and dark and café au lait. I saw a cluster wearing Gallaudet University T-shirts excitedly using sign language. The supposed promise of CRISPR is that we may someday be able to pick which of these traits we want in our children and in all of our descendants. We could choose for them to be tall and muscular and blond and blue-eyed and not deaf and not—well, pick your preferences. As I surveyed the scene with all of its natural variety, I pondered how this promise of CRISPR might also be its peril. It took nature millions of years to weave together three billion base pairs of DNA in a complex and occasionally imperfect way to permit all of the wondrous diversity within our species. Are we right to think we can now come along and edit that genome to eliminate what we see as imperfections? Will we lose our diversity? Our humility and empathy? Will we become less flavorful, like our tomatoes?