Completed: 5/20/2021
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody
Review:
Being short is not a disease. Now that that is over with, this book is pretty interesting. The examples of things people choose to use when talking about the effects of gene editing (such as height) aside, this is a thorough and interesting approach to looking at the burgeoning field of gene editing. Doudna plays a central role, but this is not really a biography (despite the billing). We do learn some of her life, but this is not a detailed look at her life. Rather, this is a detailed look at the newly created field of gene editing (looking at a lot of the editors, not just Doudna). I learned that my high school and college biology are no longer up to talking about RNA and DNA. They are the merest introduction and this book was swiftly over my head. It does not help that I have little interest in this field in general and find the terms confusing. I think that if I took more time to study the area, I would find this book a mere introduction, but I didn't and probably won't, so this book was a bit of a struggle for me in terms of the base material. I do find it interesting what is possible and, like the discussions of AI, I have a feeling that we are slipping behind on the ethics front. Which leads us back, full circle, to what genetic "diseases" people might want to fix.
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