Episode 593: The Best of Newt's World - Walter Isaacson on The Code Breaker
Newt's World
Gingrich 360
4.6 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 6 August 2023
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jennifer Doudna developed a method of genome editing along with her partner Emmanuelle Charpentier and together they won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020. Her unique journey from graduate student to Nobel prize winning scientist is chronicled by the biographer of geniuses, Walter Isaacson. His New York Times best-seller, The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race is available now.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the best of Neutral coming up my interview with Walter Isaacson on this episode of Neutral. |
| 0:07.6 | A few years ago, with my colleague Emmanuel Schrapp on TA, I invented a new technology |
| 0:13.4 | for editing genomes. It's called CRISPR Cas9. The CRISPR technology allows scientists to make |
| 0:20.4 | changes to the DNA in cells that could allow us to cure genetic disease. You might be interested |
| 0:26.8 | to know that the CRISPR technology came about through a basic research project that was aimed at |
| 0:32.1 | discovering how bacteria fight viral infections. Bacteria have to deal with viruses in their |
| 0:37.7 | environment and we can think about a viral infection like a ticking time bomb. A bacterium has only |
| 0:42.7 | a few minutes to diffuse the bomb before it gets destroyed. So many bacteria have in their cells |
| 0:49.2 | an adaptive immune system called CRISPR that allows them to detect viral DNA and destroy it. |
| 0:55.4 | Part of the CRISPR system is a protein called Cas9 that's able to seek out and cut and eventually |
| 1:02.9 | degrade viral DNA in a specific way. And it was through our research to understand the activity |
| 1:09.4 | of this protein Cas9 that we realized that we could harness its function as a genetic engineering |
| 1:16.1 | technology. A way for scientists to delete or insert specific bits of DNA into cells with |
| 1:24.5 | incredible precision that would offer opportunities to do things that really haven't been possible |
| 1:29.6 | in the past. My guess today is Walter Isaacson who's been a friend for many many years. |
| 1:43.2 | He's the best-selling author of biographies about Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, |
| 1:49.2 | Benjamin Franklin, some have called him the biographer of geniuses. And now he has added |
| 1:55.3 | Jennifer Doudna to that list with his New York Times bestseller, The Codebreaker, |
| 2:01.4 | Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of Human Race. It is a gripping account of how Nobel |
| 2:07.6 | prize winner Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues launched a revolution that will allow us to cure diseases, |
| 2:14.5 | fend off viruses, and have healthier babies. |
| 2:25.2 | Walter, thank you for joining me. It's great to talk with you. Let's start at the beginning. |
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