A Crack in Creation: The New Power to Control Evolution - Hardcover

Jennifer A. Doudna; Samuel H. Sternberg

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 184792381X ISBN 13: 9781847923813

Publisher: BODLEY HEAD, 2017

Synopsis

Crack in Creation
DNA/RNA

About this title

About the Author

Jennifer Doudna (Author) Jennifer Doudna is Professor of Chemistry and of Molecular and Cell Biology at University of California, Berkeley, and co-inventor of the CRISPR technology, for which she has been awarded many of the most distinguished prizes available, including the 2015 $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences. That same year she was listed among the 100 most influential people in the world by Time. In 2016 she had the rare honour of being elected a foreign member of the Royal Society. She speaks around the world about CRISPR and its implications for our future. Samuel Sternberg (Author) Samuel Sternberg received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2014, and was a member of Jennifer Doudna's laboratory from 2010 to 2015. He is a biochemist and author of numerous high-profile scientific publications on the CRISPR technology.

Review

"The most important advance of our era. One of the pioneers of the field describes the exciting hunt for the key breakthrough and what it portends for our future" -- Walter Isaacson "Too important ... What may happen thanks to Doudna's [discovery] is dizzying ... for her, this is the future of medicine. If she's right, then Crispr is about to make our present healthcare concerns look surprisingly trivial" -- Bryan Appleyard * Sunday Times * "One of the architects of this miraculous biological technique ... explains the science clearly and excitingly as a kind of globalist detective story" * Telegraph * "Probably the greatest biological breakthrough since that of Francis Crick, James Watson and Rosalind Franklin... We owe Doudna several times over - for her discovery, for her zeal to take it from the lab into the clinic, for her involvement in the ethical issues raised, for her public engagement work, and now for this book" -- Peter Forbes * Guardian * "An urgent plea from the celebrated biologist whose discovery enabled us to rewrite the code of life. The future is in our hands as never before, and this book explains the stakes like no other" -- George Lucas "Urgent, riveting and endlessly fascinating, this book is destined to become an instant classic. Read it if you want to understand our biological future" -- Siddhartha Mukherjee "In this wonderful book ... Doudna's and Sternberg's simple but compelling exploration of this hugely important subject offers and excellent overview of this startling and unprecedented discovery" * Literary Review * "An exhilarating and frightening roadmap to our future by one of the most pioneering women in science" -- Arianna Huffington "Jennifer Doudna is the true pioneer who built the bridge between the basic science of CRISPR and its diverse applications. Now is the time to read about the revolution that could change our world" -- George Church "A scientific thriller and a gripping read by a brilliant scientist" -- Venki Ramakrishnan "One of the most monumental discoveries in biology" * New York Times * "A detailed account of the story so far. It may well end up being compared with the book that inspired a 12-year-old Doudna in the first place: James Watson's The Double Helix ... Packed with amazing female scientists, it is thrilling, generous and no less personal ... We need scientifically informed conversations about what we should do next with these powers, and Doudna's book is a good place to begin" -- Adam Rutherford * New Scientist * "A welcome new contribution to the [gene editing] debate... She should be congratulated for being one of the very few scientists involved in a breakthrough to write a timely, popular personal account... Doudna's style, more contemplative than Watson or Venter, is just as effective at describing the increasingly frantic pace of life in the lab, as researchers realise that epoch-making discoveries are in the offing. She tells the scientific back-story particularly well... The arguments are rehearsed with admirable clarity" -- Clive Cookson * Financial Times *

Edition details

• Publisher: BODLEY HEAD
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 184792381X
• ISBN 13: 9781847923813
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 304