«This book has hit me not only for the new world it describes, but for the heartfelt narrative tone used to tell it. It is a science book that one reads with real participation of the reader.»
——Corrado Augias, Rai3 interview

«This book is an excellent instrument to understand the impact of the ongoing revolution, useful for all the readers that want to get an idea about what CRISPR is and how it works […], useful also for the most discerning palates, given the vast amount of researches and possible applications analyzed by the author»
——Le Scienze (scientific supplement of La Repubblica)

«[After Dolly, the sheep cloned 20 years ago, and the human genome maps - two enterprises that failed to live up the general expectations] are we wrong again? Anna Meldolesi, author of the first popular book on CRISPR published in Italy is well aware of the risks entailed by this new endeavour and yet she does not hesitate to answer in the negative: “No, we are not overdoing it. This is how science proceeds”. After the great expectations aroused by a new discovery there is always a steep fall into disappointment. And yet, do not be mistaken! Falling does not mean failing. Some technologies, only the best ones, are bound to rise again, climbing back up with more realistic objectives. This time our hopes take the shape of a hill and we can name it implementation's slope»
——Antonio Polito, director of Il Corriere della Sera

«Anna Meldolesi's book is a most useful guide to a topic that will both be at the core of scientific and technological progresses in the years to come and arouse a fair amount of controversies. It is a well researched book as well as a pleasant read, unbiased and low-key. It is based on facts and science, it never yields to the paranoid fears of technophobes nor does it embrace the clichés, cheap non-sense and delusions of grandeur that are so typical of scientists when they address the ethical, political and legal implications of their research»
——Gilberto Corbellini, Il Sole 24 Ore

«The first book in Italian on genome editing […] It is important to stress that it is the first one, as it fills a gap in the public debate on the impact of this scientific research strand and its ensuing applications»
——MicroMega/ La Mela di Newton

★English translation sample available

It has a difficult name, and yet the most recent biotechnology, called CRISPR, represents the brave new world we are entering right now, right here. This book explains for the first time what CRISPR is and what it can accomplish, as well as how it will shape our future, for better or worse. In the last two years a new system of genetic engineering has taken over labs worldwide. International press introduced it as a giant leap forward, the dawn of a brand new era. A racing car on a DNA roller-coaster or a stick of dynamite in the heart of genome are two of the images used by scientific journals to illustrate CRISPR.

Why such an excitement? CRISPR technology is as precise and versatile as a sharp blade. It is cheap and easy to use. It can be employed to modify multiple genes in one shot and it makes possible a wide array of hitherto unthinkable experiments. And all this thanks to bacteria: it is by studying bacteria that scientists bumped into this discovery, almost by chance (indeed they invented CRISPR so as to shield themselves from viruses).

The acronym stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, but such an obscure definition relates to a surprisingly simple biological process. It is a tool that – if aptly adjusted to mammals – makes it possible to find any DNA sequence and change it with any other of our choice.

We talk about genome editing, as if we had to do with a word processor:

Find: “scence”
Replace with: “science”
Change all.
End.

It is almost as easy as to correct typos in a document processed by an inexperienced writer. Except that the “document” is a defective gene, causing a severe disease: CRISPR identifies and amends it in the cells so that the disease almost miraculously disappears, at least theoretically. So far so good, then? Well, not quite. On one hand our technology is not so efficient as to be implemented on patients in the near future; on the other, not every disease is genetically determined and even for those originating in the genes we do not always know which genes are responsible. Last but not least, an exchange in the genetic pool might cause problems that are not easy to foresee. However, if it holds its promises, genome editing is bound to become one of the biggest breakthroughs in life sciences. It will be used, for instance, to prevent mosquitos from reproducing themselves, thus eradicating diseases such as malaria. This new technology will surely enough be used in the agri-food hands? Is there the risk that CRISPR will be used to create “custom made” babies or even “super-babies” bringing back to life eugenic ghosts? How long will it take before genome editing is used on human embryos, wondered Jennifer Doudna, one of the leading figures in this scientific discovery. Alas, too late. It did happen already, in China. Welcome to the brave new world of CRISPR, where fear and hope coexist, and the fragile boundary between the natural and the artificial has been erased. This book by Anna Meldolesi – matter of factly, easy to read, challenging - is the best guide to understand this ongoing revolutionsector, to modify our food, with unprecedented precision. It could even help overcome the ban proclaimed by some countries against GMOs, as technically we would not have transgenic organisms but only “corrected” ones.

There is another problem, though, and not a minor one. When we will able to change the genes as we like, what will prevent this technique, so easy and so viable, to end up in the wrong hands? Is there the risk that CRISPR will be used to create “custom made” babies or even “super-babies” bringing back to life eugenic ghosts? How long will it take before genome editing is used on human embryos, wondered Jennifer Doudna, one of the leading figures in this scientific discovery. Alas, too late. It did happen already, in China. Welcome to the brave new world of CRISPR, where fear and hope coexist, and the fragile boundary between the natural and the artificial has been erased. This book by Anna Meldolesi – matter of factly, easy to read, challenging - is the best guide to understand this ongoing revolution.

Anna Meldolesi, BA in Biology from the University of Bologna and MA in Science communication from the SISSA (Trieste), writes regularly for the «Corriere della Sera», whose website hosts her blog Lost in Galapagos. She is co-funder of the journal «Darwin» and she writes for «Nature Biotechnology». In 2000 she was awarded the Maria Golinelli Price, European Award for Journalism in Genetics. Among her publications, Organismi geneticamente modificati. Storia di un dibattito truccato (2001), Mai nate. Perché il mondo ha perso 100 milioni di donne (2011) e Elogio della nudità (2015).

HELLO CRISPR: Crichton’s prophecy / Search, find, cut! /From engineering to editing / The age of bacteria

THE NEW BIOTECH’S HEROES: We are history / Jennifer Doudna / Emmanuelle Charpentier / Feng Zhang / George Church
CHILDREN OF EDITING: Where in the world could the first GMO baby be born? / Asilomar 40 years later / Time to let the patient speak / And Hitler came in a dream

DNA MEDICINE: Too much excitement? / Wings of Desire / Genetic therapy 3.0 / A compass for epigenetics

A LAB ZOO: Cas mice and edited monkeys / Xenotransplantation is back / Mosquitos and egoist genes / Unicorns and dragons

A SERVE OF EDITING: CRISPR crops / Fifty shades of biotech / Entrée aux champignons / Sauce with fresh (and old) tomatoes

WHO OWNS CRISPR?: Its inventor / No one / All of us