There is a section of the book on gene editing in humans and the moral issues this raises. The Code Breaker does a good job of explaining CRISPR to a fair depth. In addition there is potential to use CRISPR as a diagnostic tool for identifying infections such as covid and even as a cure for viral diseases. Short RNA sequences are easy to synthesise making CRISPR superior to earlier gene editing techniques. CRISPR simply requires a short piece of RNA to match the target DNA in a gene to carry out its editing job. Whilst CRISPR is interesting in itself, it has applications in gene editing as a cure for disease in humans. The CRISPR repeats form a fingerprint which matches the viral DNA and the associated system of enzymes allows a bacteria to snip out viral DNA which matches this sequence. CRISPR are the basis of a type of immune system for bacteria against viruses. It is the story of CRISPR gene editing, and Jennifer Doudna, one of the central characters in the development of this system and winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2020 with Emmanuelle Charpentier for this work.ĬRISPR is an acronym for "clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats", a name derived from the DNA sequences that prompted its discovery. For my summer holiday reading I have The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson, the author was recommended by a friend.
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