I recieved this book at Christmas of 2021. It was sitting arond the house and I started reading it, I thought, this month. However, as I began to dive into the book, I realized I had started it in 2022, but COVID stress made me stop. I was just not ready. Now I can see things and more clearly and I am learning so much about what brings together scientist and discovery.

The last time I took a Biology class was in college in 1980. I studied DNA and RNA but only understood what was known at that time. I never heard of something like RNA interference. Part I of this book taught me that if you are not paying attention, you miss out on understanding new discovories in science. In 2006 it was found that bacteria fight viruses. What the heck? How? It makes me realize if you don't pay attention to the evolution of scientific understanding and then a black swan comes along in the form of a pandemic, you will be lost.

Walter Isaacson does a great job, as he did in other books of his I have read, of bringing you along step by step and making you look forward to how the story unfolds.

This is a slow read (which I don't mind) for a biology novice like me to keep up with the story of these biology developments. To get to the point in the story where the possiblilty of CRISPR aimed at the DNA of viruses might be turned into a gene editing tool, I was introduced to many scientists from around the globe: Australia, Hawaii, Czechoslovakia, little Fort Peck Montana, France, Madison Wisconsin, and other palces. Their passion for their work jumps off the page. And it combines the interests of pure scientists, practical inventors and the business community like parts of the food industry that are looking for very ways to protect cheese and yogurt bateria from a virus attack. And to know that bacteria has the mechanism to pass down immunity after a virus attack, and it has since the beginning of time, reminds me how awe inspring nature is even down to the nanosized parts we can't even know yet.

Now come the personal challanges. Jennifer DouDNA (hehe), the main scientest profiled in this book, wonders if taking this pure science to market and reaping the rewards is an opportunity she cannot pass up. And there is so much competition, internationally, for who can claim to be the inventor, win of the patents and claimer of the glory of being the first to make a working gene editing tool. That comes with a lot of laywers and back stabbing. But I suppose one must find a way to deal with all kinds of scientists and humans.

The biohackers arrive. Those who think the power of gene editing should be in the hands of anyone. Doudna makes every effort to find a "prudent way forward". She has a dream, no a nightmare, about Hitler in the dream he is very interested in making the perfect human. She tries but in the end, and this is a pretty technical discussion, a Chinese scientist named Jiankui creates an embryo (twins actually) with gene editing that is imcomplete. They are born alive and at this point in the book, there seems to be no issues other than they are not protected from the the thing he was trying to edit them for, suffering from HIV like their father. But where does this all go, to enhance humans? Slippery slope. Or just to treat human conditions? Still not crystal clear ethically.

I start to really get conflicted and squeamish about this technology at this point, especially since I believe life begins at conception. The Orwellian aspect of where gene editing could go is distrubing.

Much discussion goes on here about how gene editing is good because it will cure "disorders", and create a "painless life". But who decides when something challenging about a person needs to be removed from not only the individual but for the potentilal to remove that "disorder" for generations to come, eliminating the undesireables? The word eugenics comes to mind, which I think in most would give pause. But science has a forward motion and it mostly leaves the questions of when and why to ethicist and humanist, if they get themselves into the discussion.

The point is made that the potential for cancer killing, virus immunity is not enhancement of mankind, but treatment of disease.

At the day of the first death from COVID in China on 1/9/2020, the scientest there release the full genetic sequence of the virus to the world, and thus begins the cooperative work around the globe to deal with the looming pandemic. First priority was to be able to have cheap, accessable testing early when exposed to the COVID 19, next for vacines and finally for treatemenst using CRISPER technology.

At this part of the book I had to take another pause. Although I have a lifestyle that was not daily interupted by COVID, I did have an elderly father and a daughter planning a large, traditional wedding. My father faired very well and never got sick. My daughter eventually had a wonderful wedding after three postponments. My son was also was hit a hard stop in the planning of a business he was opening but he is now procedding as planned. Stessfull but manageable by most standards. But still you had no crystal ball. You knew it would take time, which was also so precious for my brother and sister, who both had cancer. So of course any hope for a way out was very attractive and it came in what felt like a fast moving stream. If everyone gets in, we can get past this threat.

I am very much in favor of the tradtional vaccines of my youth, where a micro dose of a virus, or even a dead virus, is injected and ones immune system regonizes the threat and can defeat it if exposed again in the wild. And I understand how we need 90% or more of us to get vacinate to elimnate the threat, like we have done with small pox, for example.

But now, I understood the vacines that were being offered where different, and the technology had been used for awhile and that they looked very promising and the government gave an emergency approval for use. There was scarcity at first and when I got the chance, I got the Pfizer vacines. BUT, I have known this whole time I really did not have a grasp on how these new vacines worked. Something about RNA and I took the leap of faith.

I was aware and I am very impressed on how the international communites worked so fast and well together, but the picture is so much more detailed in my mind now. I also learned in the book about many individuals who came to this county as young people and began a career in biology and business because of our free market system.

But now I get to the part of where I learned about what I put in my body to protect me from the virus. I was actually frightened to read it. The author builds the reader's understanding very well through out the book, so I felt I understood technically what was done. Tiny oily lipid nanoparticles were injected into my arm with mRNA that instructed the cytoplasm, the outer regions of the cell, to make part of the spike protein of COVID and then my immune system would recognize the treat and, like tradtional vaccines, my body would build an immune response so when I was exposed, I had a fighting chance.

I also learned that since 2018 flu vaccines used mRNA. I did feel ok about that . That had full approval of the FDA, even if I was taking this vaccine on an emergency approval.

I know there is no progress without risk. And I will never forget the range of emotions and the divisiveness of the United States through out the pandemic. It made you lean to pick a side, which is not ideal. But ultimately I am glad I got the vaccines and that I can now, with a more calm mind, read this book that I was not ready to absorb in 2022.

The book introdues something that was new at the time of publication, which is CARVER, basically an attempt to treat the virus within the infected body by gene editing. This overall remarkable story of the world of science, in a short window, creating a test for a novel virus, then vaccines for that virus that were distributed around the world and then a treatment for the virus with the body, was a worthy read.

Bless the souls of the almost 7 millions humans we lost globally, including my volleyball buddy, Diana.

The finale is the Nobel Prize in Chemistry being won Jennnifer DouDNA and Emamanielle Charpentier in 2020 for the discovery of the CRISPR/CAS9 genetic scissors. A prize recognizing these hard working women is notable.

Finally, do I think the scientific world operates with only objective, perfect and pure science? No. And do they know all the hazards or unexpected consequences. No. Things have to move forward. There is never a perfect. But, if I face another medical crisis like this pandemic again, I hope I am more emotionally evolved and can look closely and objectively at the solutions proposed. I think I will ultimately again take part in the vaccines as they roll out to protect me, my family and those I do not even know. But I don't want to go blind again. It wasnt a bad thing, I just think I can do better.