Isaacson: Jennifer Doudna Pursued Chemistry After Reading 'The Double Helix'
Walter Isaacson · #121 Walter Isaacson: Curiosity Fuels Creativity · Oct 5, 2021 · at 1:04:14
Biographer Walter Isaacson explains the power of storytelling to inspire innovators, detailing how CRISPR co-inventor Jennifer Doudna chose science over studying French.
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“When she was in middle school, Jennifer Doudna came home one day and found on her bed the book, The Double Helix, by James Watson, and she read it, and she saw Rosalind Franklin, this biochemist in it and she said, oh, I didn't know women could become scientists. And she was inspired by Rosalind Franklin, but also by Watson and Crick and others to say, I want to become a scientist. And so she had been thinking, I'm going to study French, but no, she decides she's going to become a chemist.”
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