The Code Breaker

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When Jennifer Doudna was a sixth grader in Hilo, Hawaii, she came home from school one afternoon and found a book that would spark her curiosity in science. It was The Double Helix, James Watson's account of how he and Francis Crick had discovered the structure of DNA, the spiral-staircase molecule that carries the genetic instruction code for all forms of life. When the time came, Doudna focused her studies on what seemed to take a backseat in biochemistry: figuring out the structure of RNA, a closely related molecule that enables the genetic instructions coded in DNA to express themselves. Doudna's expertise led her and her collaborators to develop a revolutionary technique that could actually edit human genes. Today gene-editing technologies such as CRISP are already being used to eliminate simple genetic defects that cause disorders such as Tay-Sachs disease and sickle-cell anemia. For now, however, Doudna and her team are lining up against our most immediate threat -- the coronavirus--and you have just been given a front-row seat to that race.