The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race

It is fitting that viruses and bacteria feature prominently in The Code Breaker, since contemporary gene-editing technologies are inspired by the battle between the two diminutive giants. The focus on viruses is doubly important in the age of pandemics, because the coronavirus and other vectors will continue to evolve and present new challenges. However, underlining these pertinent issues is Isaacson’s admiration for the complex workings such simple organisms can orchestrate. Viruses, for instance, are described as “tiny packets of genetic material” that “are essentially lifeless on their own” (32). Yet viruses can hijack a cell’s machinery to replicate themselves, wreaking havoc on their host, as seen with COVID-19. It is the very simplicity of a virus’s genetic material that makes it so easy to replicate. As Isaacson says, “In SARS-COv-2, the RNA is about 29,900 base pairs long, compared to more than three billion in human DNA” (394). The COVID-19 virus can code for a mere 29 proteins, one of which is the dreaded spike protein that can wriggle into cells lining human lungs, intestines, the liver, and more.

If viruses are ingenious, bacteria, who have fought viruses far longer than human beings, are equally wily opponents. They remember a virus’s code, adapt some of their genetic material to mimic it (as CRISPRs), and use a scissors-like enzyme to chop up the matching genetic code. Advanced as human beings are, they have not naturally evolved any such technology. Meanwhile, some viruses have gone ahead and developed anti-CRISPRs, little sequences that infiltrate a bacteria’s DNA and sabotage their CRISPR system. Anti-CRISPR technology is now seen as a means to turn off harmful gene-editing changes. Thus, viruses and bacteria symbolize the power of nature. Viruses, bacteria, and other microorganisms are also symbols for adaptability and flexibility. Not only are these specimens prodigious in numbers, but they are also masters of survival. Despite the ravages of bacterial diseases, bacteria are also presented as benign in the text. After all, they are the organisms that evolved CRISPRs, and they also keep the human gut healthy and culture milk into yoghurt and cheese. Moreover, the book shows scientists performing lab work starting with yeast and bacteria because these cells are flexible and their components can be easily isolated in a test tube.

Returning to viruses, they are also a recurring motif because of their ubiquity in the converging biological and virtual worlds. Viruses are often described as “hijacking” or “hacking” a human system, while digital viruses infect a computer. As the boundaries between the natural and the technological collapse, viruses are a potent metaphor for hybridity. Because both the somatic and virtual worlds have to contend with viruses, the two spheres are more linked than ever. Further, the mutability of viruses also symbolizes the need for well-crafted checks and balances on gene-editing technology. Not only can zoonotic (animal-origin) viruses jump species, like MERS did from bat to camel to humans, but viruses can also be easily genetically tweaked and engineered, increasing the threat of bioterror. Thus, paying attention to small—and in this case, the smallest—details matters.

The genetic code—from viruses and humans alike—twists through Isaacson’s text like a double helix. One of his central tenets is that the genetic code is the vanguard of the next scientific revolution, much as the digital code was of the information age. While the basic unit of the digital code is the bit, which encodes information in a classic 0 and 1 binary, that of the genetic code is the nucleotide base. Bases are the sugar-phosphate molecules Adenine (A), Thymine (T), Cytosine (C), Guanine (G), and (for RNA) Uracil (U). Sequences of base-pairs are encoded in the DNA found in mitochondria in cell nucleuses. Each sequence is a code for the formation of a specific protein. On a macro level, this code is the genetic template for specific organisms.

In COVID-19, the sequence “GCACGUAGUGU” codes for the part of the spike protein that latches into human cells. Hypothetically, if even one letter of this code was different, the virus wouldn’t be the same. Thus, the letters of the genetic code hold immense power, and knowing this code marks the symbolic transition from human to superhuman. When Bill Clinton celebrated the founding of the Human Genome Project—which aims to list all the 3 billion plus base pairs of the human genome—he said, “Today we are learning the language in which God created life” (54).

The reference to the genetic code as scared knowledge occurs elsewhere in the text. The epigraph to Part 1 quotes from the Book of Genesis, where God plants in the middle of Paradise “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (14). Earlier, the prospect of gene editing is compared to when Adam and Eve bit into the apple. Thus, knowing and manipulating genetic code on one level symbolizes possessing and wielding an unknown and supreme knowledge.

Significantly, a bitten apple is the logo of Apple Inc., the brand founded by Steve Jobs, which brought an unknown knowledge into homes through the personal computer. Isaacson recalls Jobs saying that people who breach such knowledge-barriers “push the human race forward” (318). In the text people like Jobs—and even biohacker Josiah Zayner, who aims to edit genetic code from his garage—are admirable because they want to make knowledge universal. Thus, the code represents not just sacred knowledge but also knowledge that must be shared. The secret letters of the code, and the power to edit them, cannot be kept in the control of a few. That will only lead to a knowledge oligarchy, which creates further social inequality. Even the journey to learn the genetic code has been marred by the appropriation of knowledge. After all, it was unsung hero Rosalind Franklin who first discovered that base pairs in human DNA cannot poke outward. It was also Franklin’s data that Wilkins secretly passed on to Watson and Crick, which ultimately won the men their Nobel Prize.