Date: May 27, 2021Time: 12:30 PM to 2:30 PM
May272021

HBS Alumni Book Club – The Code Breaker – Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson (virtual)

Thu, 12:30 PM to 2:30 PM Zoom Meeting (Information to be sent to Registrants)
Alumni OnlyDaytime

Description

A summary, from the book’s dust jacket:

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.

You are invited to join a discussion of Walter Isaacson’s latest must-read book at our HBS Alumni Book Club’s (virtual) meeting of May 27, 2021 from 12:30PM to 2:30PM.

Participants must register by NOON on May 26th to join the discussion.

Date Time

Date: May 27, 2021Time: 12:30 PM to 2:30 PM

Location

Zoom Meeting (Information to be sent to Registrants)1460 Broadway
New York, NY 10036
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Price

  • Free / Registration

Attendees

Lloyd Baroody, Lloyd Baroody, Antoine Bernheim, Robert Bertagna, John Bills, Ana Danciu, James Davidson, Daniel Dickson, Barbara Doran, Ayala Gamburd, E. Hardman, John Hartig, Martin Hunt, Rangiah Kadaveru, Mary Jane Kaplan, Eileen Kemether, John Levy, Jie Li, Amelia Lo, James Magid, Richard Maniscalco, Shelia Manischewitz, Jean-Louis Maserati, Diana Mayer, Joseph Morein, Margit Pearson, Paul Rogers, William Rosser, Masatomo Sakairi, Nicholas Sakellariadis, Harriet Schweitzer, Efrem Sigel, Peter Siris, George Skakel, Paul Stratton, Linda Sweeney, Charles Toder, Ranne Warner

Organizer

Jean-Louis Maserati MBA '75

Zoom Meeting (Information to be sent to Registrants)

1460 Broadway, New York, NY, 10036