Once in a while, we have an invention that changes the world completely, permanently and irreversibly. With the atomic bomb, came the ability to destroy the entire human race in an instant. With penicillin, deaths from paper cuts became obsolete. With satellite TV, stories from around the world entered our living rooms. This century’s great contribution to the timeline of discovery is CRISPR-Cas9 – which can not only change life as we know it but life itself. With CRISPR technology, we can edit the genomes of organisms as if they were a Word document. We can enable immune cells to attack cancer cells with greater aggressiveness, and cure Huntington’s disease or even muscular dystrophy with astounding ease. Intoxicated biologists are raving over it at parties, science-fiction producers are basing entire plots on it, and policy-makers are struggling to regulate its use. But at the heart of this incredible story of CRISPR, lies the story of Jennifer Doudna – the woman who helped make it a reality.
The flashback
With sun-like hair and bright blue eyes, Jennifer Doudna stood out in the tropical landscape of Hilo in Hawaii, where she spent most of her childhood. Scientists are often made, not born, and for Doudna, being surrounded by volcanoes and lush forests and remote beaches probably had something to do with it. It was a time when the internet was yet to take over the role of libraries and encyclopedias, so Doudna had to find all her answers between the lines of books. With a fondness for the life sciences, Doudna followed the road signs to Harvard, where she attended graduate school. Grappling with tough questions about the origin of life, Doudna’s initial work focused on a molecule called RNA. She guessed that her work might find a modest mention in biology textbooks, but she didn’t anticipate helping change the world as we know it.
Jennifer Doudna
Her meeting with CRISPR
During her time at the University of California, Berkely in the early 2000s, Doudna first encountered CRISPR, an area of research that was gaining momentum many years after its initial discovery. CRISPR is a region found within the genomes of many bacteria, but it is often seen with tiny wedges of viral DNA in-between. Why would bacteria stick bits of viruses, one of their biggest predators, into their precious genetic code? They do this for self-defense. Upon meeting a deadly virus, the bacterium chops it up and stores a bit of it within this CRISPR region. This is to remember its enemies by, as though it is maintaining a molecular database of notorious criminals. Should this virus infect the bacterium again, it manufactures molecular ‘assassins’ armed with a copy of this viral fingerprint which they use to recognise and destroy that virus.
The spark of one idea
At a conference in early 2011, she met Emmanuelle Charpentier, a French microbiologist working in Sweden, who had also been studying the oddities of CRISPR. Amused by each other’s findings, they started a scientific long-distance relationship across the Atlantic, involving a truly international merger of ideas, technologies and science, and of course – copious Skype sessions. They came up with an idea that was going to take the world by storm.
What if they could programme this CRISPR machinery to go after any gene? The molecular assassins can be trained to find any gene, not just a viral one, if they were handed an engineered but matching copy for that gene. Together, the Doudna and Charpentier labs established a step-by-step strategy to do exactly this in an explosive paper that spread around the scientific world like wildfire. Almost instantly, scientists were using this tool to edit genes in everything from crops and cows to mice and men. So far, it has succeeded in treating untreatable leukaemia, NEMO deficiency syndrome, and is being used to make the HIV virus less virulent.
Emmanuelle Charpentier
Wait a second
When Doudna understood the true impact of this technology, she ‘felt a growing unease because the science was moving faster than anyone outside the scientific community can appreciate’.
What if CRISPR can be used to resurrect an extinct species by modifying the genome of its present-day relative? What if a chicken can be turned into a dinosaur, and an elephant into a woolly mammoth? What if we can create a completely new creature? What if we can influence the shape and shade of our babies, bestowing upon them gifts of native intelligence and Herculean strength? It is all possible, but only in time.
Nathaniel Comfort, a historian of medicine, writes, ‘If you believe that made-to-order babies are possible, you oversimplify how genes work’.
When Chinese scientists used CRISPR on human embryos, Doudna was plunged into the middle of a heated debate about the ethics of gene editing.
She said, ‘I realized that I have to get involved in this conversation. I cannot leave it to others to do this. How do we, as a species, use a technology like this safely?’.
Doudna has called for a global pause on the use of CRISPR to create altered embryos until an appropriate regulatory framework is set up. A change like this would cascade down many generations, and essentially alter evolution.
From scientist to celebrity
Doudna was launched into stardom overnight. She and Charpentier were each awarded $3 million, at an event funded by leading Internet entrepreneurs. One of Time’s 100 most influential people in the world, her advice and expertise is sought at global conferences hosting scientists, ethicists, and policy-makers. She gives talks about the use and misuse of CRISPR in universities around the world. Following the creation of CRISPR-Cas9 technology, Doudna had to take on a new role in society, as if she had acquired the same status as a newly created superhero.
She reflects, ‘Frequently, I’m not only away from my lab, but also my family. Sometimes, I feel an incredible sense of sadness. I think about the before and after of my life. My life has profoundly changed and it will never go back.’
Like Doudna’s life, this technology has changed the story of our society in more ways than one, and in ways that are probably more revolutionary than satellite TV or penicillin. We must thank Jennifer Doudna, for propelling the human race into a new age of possibilities, and for ignoring the umpteen tweets and numerous efforts that tell women to stay away from science.
