The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson. This is a truly amazing book and perhaps (in a crowded field) the most important book I have read this year.
Jennifer is an American biochemist. Today she is Chair Professor in the department of chemistry and the department of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley and is an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She holds a Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School.
Jennifer is also the President and Chair of the board at the Innovative Genomics Institute, a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institutes, and an adjunct professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco.
Jennifer Doudna is a rock star. Well Noble Prize winner rock star. And this book serves as inspiration for my daughter. No better example for any daughter to see that begin told what a girl cannot accomplish than to see how Jennifer literally hit it out of the park.
As this story reveals, Jennifer was in sixth grade when her father gave her a copy of James Watson’s book The Double Helix. This was her inspiration that would trigger her discoveries to understand DNA codes as a scientist.