MJCCA Book Fest and Atlanta History Center Present Walter Isaacson - The Code Breaker Virtual Event

MJCCA Book Fest and Atlanta History Center Present Walter Isaacson - The Code Breaker Virtual Event

Thursday, Mar 04, 2021 8:00 PM

Location:
Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta on Zoom

The bestselling author of ”Leonardo da Vinci” and ”Steve Jobs” returns with a gripping account of how Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues launched a revolution that will allow us to cure diseases, fend off viruses, and have healthier babies.

The Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta and the Atlanta History Center welcome author Walter Isaacson for an online discussion of his new book, “The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race,” on Thursday, March 4, 2020, at 8 PM (EST).

This program is presented in partnership with the National JCC Literary Consortium.

Tickets options are as follows:

-Admit one for $11 (does not include a copy of the book); or 

-Admit one for $38 (includes a copy of “The Code Breaker" featuring a signed bookplate. Price covers shipping.) 

All books will be shipped after the event. Please note that USPS is experiencing delays due to the pandemic. Mailed packages may arrive several days later than usual.

About the Book

When Jennifer Doudna was in sixth grade, she came home one day to find that her dad had left a paperback titled The Double Helix on her bed. She put it aside, thinking it was one of those detective tales she loved. When she read it on a rainy Saturday, she discovered she was right, in a way. As she sped through the pages, she became enthralled by the intense drama behind the competition to discover the code of life. Even though her high school counselor told her girls didn’t become scientists, she decided she would.

Driven by a passion to understand how nature works and to turn discoveries into inventions, she would help to make what the book’s author, James Watson, told her was the most important biological advance since his co-discovery of the structure of DNA. She and her collaborators turned a curiosity of nature into an invention that will transform the human race: an easy-to-use tool that can edit DNA. Known as CRISPR, it opened a brave new world of medical miracles and moral questions.

Should we use our new evolution-hacking powers to make us less susceptible to viruses? What a wonderful boon that would be! And what about preventing depression? Should we allow parents, if they can afford it, to enhance the height or muscles or IQ of their kids?

After helping to discover CRISPR, Doudna became a leader in wrestling with these moral issues and, with her collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier, won the Nobel Prize in 2020. Her story is a thrilling detective tale that involves the most profound wonders of nature, from the origins of life to the future of our species.

About the Author

Walter Isaacson, a professor of history at Tulane, has been CEO of the Aspen Institute, chair of CNN, and editor of Time. He is the author of “Leonardo da Vinci;” “The Innovators;” “Steve Jobs;” “Einstein: His Life and Universe;” “Benjamin Franklin: An American Life;” and “Kissinger: A Biography,” and the coauthor of “The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made.”