Best Tech Books of 2017
In 2012, Jennifer Doudna, a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, coauthored a seminal paper that described how CRISPR-Cas9, a natural defense system found in bacteria, could be used as a powerful genome-editing tool. In the years since, CRISPR has been imagined as a way to cure devastating genetic diseases by snipping out faulty DNA or adding healthy copies of genes. But many worry that CRISPR will enable genetic engineering of “designer babies” with certain desirable traits. Co-written with her former graduate student Samuel Sternberg, Doudna’s book explores what it means to be at the forefront of a cutting-edge technology and addresses the implications that come with the ability to change not only our own DNA but also the life around us.
–Emily Mullin
