书籍介绍
The bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs returns with a gripping account of how Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues launched a revolution that will allow us to cure diseases, fend off viruses, and have healthier babies.
When Jennifer Doudna was in sixth grade, she came home one day to find that her dad had left a paperback titled The Double Helix on her bed. She put it aside, thinking it was one of those detective tales she loved. When she read it on a rainy Saturday, she discovered she was right, in a way. As she sped through the pages, she became enthralled by the intense drama behind the competition to discover the code of life. Even though her high school counselor told her girls didn’t become scientists, she decided she would.
Driven by a passion to understand how nature works and to turn discoveries into inventions, she would help to make what the book’s author, James Watson, told her was the most important biological advance since his co-discovery of the structure of DNA. She and her collaborators turned a curiosity of nature into an invention that will transform the human race: an easy-to-use tool that can edit DNA. Known as CRISPR, it opened a brave new world of medical miracles and moral questions.
The development of CRISPR and the race to create vaccines for coronavirus will hasten our transition to the next great innovation revolution. The past half-century has been a digital age, based on the microchip, computer, and internet. Now we are entering a life-science revolution. Children who study digital coding will be joined by those who study genetic code.
Should we use our new evolution-hacking powers to make us less susceptible to viruses? What a wonderful boon that would be! And what about preventing depression? Hmmm…Should we allow parents, if they can afford it, to enhance the height or muscles or IQ of their kids?
After helping to discover CRISPR, Doudna became a leader in wrestling with these moral issues and, with her collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier, won the Nobel Prize in 2020. Her story is a thrilling detective tale that involves the most profound wonders of nature, from the origins of life to the future of our species.
AI导读
核心看点
- 揭秘CRISPR基因编辑技术从发现到获诺奖的革命历程
- 展现杜德纳等科学家在科研竞争与合作中的真实群像
- 深入探讨基因编辑技术带来的伦理争议与未来应用前景
适合谁读
- 对生命科学、基因编辑及前沿科技感兴趣的普通读者
- 关注科学家成长故事、科研幕后竞争与人物传记爱好者
- 希望了解CRISPR技术原理及其社会影响的科普读者
读前提醒
- 本书兼具传记与科普属性，非专业读者可略过深奥生化细节
- 作者为在世人物立传，部分叙述可能有所保留，需辩证看待
- 书中涉及大量专利战与伦理讨论，建议结合新闻背景阅读
读者共识
- 叙事节奏紧凑如侦探小说，比作者前作更引人入胜易读
- 部分读者认为传记深度不足，偏向资料汇编与科普拼盘
- 对伦理问题的探讨被指略显浅显，但整体仍具启发意义
本导读基于书籍简介、目录、原文摘录、短评和书评生成，不等同于全文精读。
精彩摘录
- "CRISPR是科研人员于自然中发现的一套抗击病毒系统。在新冠肺炎大流行肆虐之际，诺贝尔奖委员会将荣誉给予了CRISPR，以此提醒我们，好奇心驱动的基础研究最终可以产出具有实际价值的应用成果。CRISPR和新冠肺炎推动我们加速进入生命科学时代。分子正成为新的微芯片。 在新冠病毒危机形势最为严峻之际，杜德纳受《经济学人》之邀，以正在发生的社会巨变为题，撰写一篇文章。杜德纳写道：“与当今生活中的诸多方面一样，科学与科学实践似乎正经历着快速甚至永久性的变化。这将使现状得到改善。”她预测，公众将增进对生物学和科学方法的理解。官员会更加重视为基础科学提供资金的重要作用。科学家彼此合作、相互竞争、互相交流的"
- "We all see nature's wonders every day,whether it be a plant that moves or a sunset that reaches with pink fingers into a sky of deep blue.The key to true curiosity is pausing to ponder the causes.What makes a sky blue or a sunset pink or a leaf of sleeping grass curl?"
- "Women in science tend to be shy about promoting themselves, and that has serious costs. A study in 2019 of more than six million articles with women as the principal author showed that they are less likely to use self promotional terms,such as“novel" and“unique” and "unprecedented," to describe thei"
- "在理解自然的过程中获得乐趣是科学家做研究的主要动力。但是大多数科学家会承认，成为首个发现人，其所带来的精神与物质奖励也是驱使他们前进的动力：发表论文、获得专利、赢得奖项、业界留名。与所有人一样（这是进化特征吗？），科学家们想要因自己的成就获得荣誉，因自己的努力获得回报，获得公众的称赞，在脖子上挂上获奖绶带。这就是他们工作至深夜、聘用宣传人员和专利律师，并邀请（像我一样的）作家进入他们实验室的原因。"
- "旷日持久的斗争受情感和憎恨驱使，发展到了毫无必要的程度。相反，杜德纳和张锋本可以参照德州仪器的Jack Kilby 和英特尔的Robert Noyce 的范例。范例中的两人经过5年的争斗，最终同意通过向彼此交叉授予知识产权许可，分享奖金，共享微芯片专利权。此举促进微芯片业务呈指数上涨，定义了一个新的技术世纪。与CRISPR的争夺者不同，Noyce和Kilby 遵循了一项极为重要的商业格言：在抢完驿站马车前，不要为分割收益争论不休。"
- "Vertex and CRISPR Therapeutics Announce US FDA Approval of CASGEVY™ (exagamglogene autotemcel) for the Treatment of Sickle Cell Disease – First-ever approval of a CRISPR-based gene-editing therapy in the U.S. – – Approximately 16,000 patients 12 years of age and older with severe sickle cell disease"
- "If some RNA molecules could store genetic information and also act as a catalyst to spur chemical reactions, they might be more fundamental to the origins of life than DNA, which cannot naturally replicate themselves without the presence of proteins to serve as a catalyst."
- "The crRNA contained a twenty-letter sequence that acted as a set of coordinates to guide the complex to a piece of DNA with a similar sequence. The tracrRNA, which had helped create this crRNA, now had the additional role of acting like a scaffold that held the other components in just the right pla"
作者简介
Walter Isaacson, a professor of history at Tulane, has been CEO of the Aspen Institute, chair of CNN, and editor of Time. He is the author of Leonardo da Vinci; The Innovators; Steve Jobs; Einstein: His Life and Universe; Benjamin Franklin: An American Life; and Kissinger: A Biography, and the coauthor of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made. Visit him at Isaacson.Tulane.edu.
用户评论
很好的了解CRISP的科普
美国式的人生成功故事
感觉看了一部宫斗剧？
挺好看的，实效性很强，跟covid联系很紧密。最喜欢看这种众人拾柴火焰高，每个人的研究都为某个成功的发现奠定基石的故事。所以其实叫code breakers确实更合适，很喜欢Doudna和Charpentier这种微妙的情感，既是合作者又有点小竞争的感觉。中间有段讲gene editing的好处和坏处觉得有点离题，好在后面又拉回来了
本来还想写长评的，连标题都想好了：《破解了生命密码后，世界会变得更好吗》。然而越看到后面越觉得由于几个主要人物都还在世，作者碍于情面也不能写得太那个啥，而且他们也都知道作者是那个著名的畅销书作家 Walter Isaacson，所以说的话也很像是有所保留的，这对于一本传记来说就比较致命了。于是就像佐杜洛夫斯基的沙丘一样，这篇长评直接胎死腹中貌似也不错。
这本书的写法太闷了，吸引人的反而是那些争议角色，比如口无遮拦的沃森，或者死捧弟子的Eric Lander，其他角色都立不起来。好在crispr周围的抓马就算遇到这种笔触也丝毫没有减少八点档特质。伦理部分非常浅，有大段丝毫没有建设性的“上帝”“自然”讨论，这都什么年代了。在我看来社交网络还邪恶得要死呢，但人家已经在这里了，好好拆分和针对性解决吧。有朝一日我一定能等来有个性有文笔还不谈上帝的生物学家重写这段往事的
should be the code breakers. 一开始是抱着Bill Gates 推荐过所以想看，不得不说有点失望。但是看到Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation 资助了以后就也没那么意外了。
去年读的比较好的一本：Walter Isaacson写的好几本传记我都很喜欢，这部也不错[强]激烈的基因科研竞争，旷日持久的专利大战，对名利及科研贡献大小的纷争，人性，欲望，友情等等，写的依旧很精彩。通过这书对生物技术这个领域的往事今生有了更多了解。虽然书结束的一段鸡汤我感觉和书里很多地方刻画的人物不是太符合，但最纯粹的科研应该就是那样：
“[the scientists] their main motivation is not money, or even glory, but the chance to unlock the mysteries of nature and use those discoveries to make the world a better place”
最多3.5星吧。与其说这是一本传记不如说是科普。然而作者写科普书的能力远不如其他专业学者。
关于基因编辑的道德问题作者花了很长的篇幅讨论，这个话题写几本书都可以，作者在这方面的理论知识显然还不够。道德问题谁都有权利发言，但写太多了看着很乏味。
零星的点:金字塔尖的竞争很激烈，人尖们犯过的错走过的弯路有借鉴意义，国外的前沿科学研究值得时刻跟进和关注。
读了Emmanuelle Charpentier, Feng Zhang, &He jiankui, CRISPR, Gene editing historic records部分，作者写到science内容一笔带过，想了解详细内容自己去看文献，历史的部分讲述得比较精彩，不搞学术的人读了能看到研究进步发展时间线上科学家们的主导、参与、被遗忘、被放弃及存活的真实展现，good read
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