Hacking the Code of Life: How gene editing will rewrite our futures

A lot of books on science aimed at the general reader may be interesting and exciting but cover topics unlikely to affect the lives of general readers in the foreseeable future - think gravitational waves for example. But this topic really is front page news. The book tells you about the political, economic, environmental, medical, moral, and legal issues of genetic engineering. The very new developments in the current decade, CRISPR and gene drive technology, are set to have massive and rapid impacts upon farming, pest control, and medicine. They could prove highly beneficial in a wide variety of ways but could also be hazardous, even potentially leading to new forms of warfare. The genie is out of the bottle and no legal sanctions can possibly put it back. The book gives just enough science to enable the general reader to grasp the principles without cutting deeper than it needs to do. For example it does not even tell you what G,A, T, and C stand for. You don't need to know. What it does do in 160 pages is cover the pressing issues. Each chapter has ten to twenty references if you want to cut deeper. It is very clearly written and you can read it in an afternoon. It is so current that it relates an important US Supreme Court ruling from September 2018.

Easy, well written and accessible, a good explanation of gene editing and the CRISPR technique, and related problems for ethics and society.

I know a thing or two about this subject, and have read other books on it. Nessa Carey is BY FAR the best. The book is grounded and sensible, with the economy and simplicity of writing that comes of a really skilled science writer. Carey deftly identifies key controversies with regard to regulation and policy, highlighting absurdities in existing frameworks and the failure of governments to respond to a momentous technology with immense potential for the amelioration of global challenges. She’s also, as in all her books, so amusing and chatty that readers almost can’t imagine that the subject is actually rather complicated. Highly recommended!

The book provides a good overview of genetic editing and its social, scientific, legal, financial, philosophical and ethical ramifications. However, the author does come across as somewhat idiosyncratic. In Chapter 3 on the topic of population growth and ageing, very oddly she claims that two people result in there being 16 on the planet in just three generations, entirely ignoring the families that their children and grandchildren marry into. On the subject of organ transplants, she rather coldly and tactlessly points out that fewer organ donors are available because fewer people are dying in motor accidents, without equating the lives saved on our roads with lives saved because of organ transplants, perhaps because one dead motorist's organs could "save, on average, eight lives". And, at the very end, rather out of the blue, she credits gene editing technology with the potential to bring about "a more equal world for all", almost as if mutated genes and diseases are the main cause of inequality, which, of course, they are not.

Very clear writing in a casual style. Surprisingly comprehensive for a mere 160 pages of text. Applications of gene editing in many areas are described. Highly recommended.