Matthew Cobb’s latest book is a disturbing history of genetic engineering, which asks whether it is worth the money – or the risk
Gene editing, exemplified by CRISPR technology, has elicited both hopes and fears
ELLA MARU STUDIO/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
The Genetic Age
Profile Books
FOR more than 50 years, biologists have been genetically engineering organisms in increasingly precise ways. From the early, crude methods of the 1960s and 1970s, to the modern “gene editing” exemplified by CRISPR technology, genetic engineering has elicited great hopes and terrifying fears.
In his disturbing and readable new book The Genetic Age: Our perilous quest to edit life, biologist and science historian Matthew Cobb tells the story of this field. …