The guts to take on the microbiome

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View in browser  |  Your newsletter preferences  09.24.23 Crispr Pioneer Jennifer Doudna Has the Guts to Take On the Microbiome Back in 2015, longtime WIRED contributor Jennifer Kahn wrote a big story about a biochemist named Jennifer Doudna. (Alas, that feature was for The New York Times, not us.) At the time, Doudna and another researcher by the name of Emmanuelle Charpentier were at work on Crispr technology, and they had just made some serious strides with key discoveries about DNA manipulation and "Crispr-Cas9," or "genetic scissors." Five years later the two won a Nobel Prize for the work. (Before he wrote about Elon Musk, Walter Isaacson wrote a book about Doudna and her work.) But you probably know all this, because UC Berkeley–based Doudna has become something of a household name for any science nerd ever since. (And Jennifer Kahn went on to give a very popular TED talk about Crispr.) So when Doudna announced that she was involved in a big new project to try to use Crispr technology on the microbiome to tackle such problems as childhood disease and climate change (yes, both), we rushed to ask Kahn to talk to Doudna again. As Kahn writes, "Until recently, it would have seemed insane—not to mention literally impossible—to edit all the microbes belonging to a species within a vast ecosystem like our gut … My own gut feeling (right?) was that this was either brilliant or terrifying, or possibly both at once. Brilliant because it had the potential to head off or treat diseases in an incredibly targeted and noninvasive way. Terrifying because, well, you know … releasing a bunch of inert viruses equipped with gene-editing machinery into the vital ecosystem that is our gut microbiome—what could go wrong?" The conversation between the two turned into the latest in WIRED's series of Big Interviews. You can read it here. —Maria Streshinsky | Executive Editor READ THE FULL STORY You Might Also Like The Gruesome Story of How Neuralink's Monkeys Actually Died BY DHRUV MEHROTRA AND DELL CAMERON | 5-MINUTE READ Elon Musk says no primates died as a result of Neuralink's implants. A WIRED investigation now reveals the grisly specifics of their deaths as US authorities have been asked to investigate Musk's claims. Confessions of a Viral AI Writer BY VAUHINI VARA | 17-MINUTE READ Despite my success with AI-generated stories, I'm not sure they are good for writers—or writing itself. ADVERTISEMENT How a 'Digital Peeping Tom' Unmasked Porn Actors BY KASHMIR HILL | 6-MINUTE READ "It's like the secret identity of Batman or Superman. You're not supposed to know who this person is, they didn't want you to know, and somehow you found out." The Dark Economics of Russell Brand BY PETER GUEST | 5-MINUTE READ Russell Brand has built a massive following on YouTube and Rumble with conspiracy-laden videos. He says the mainstream is out to get him—but is it all just a grift? If Elon Musk Had Been a Happy Child, Would He Still Be Launching Rockets? BY STEVEN LEVY | 8-MINUTE READ "Biographer of Genius" Walter Isaacson thinks he cracked the code to Elon Musk—the entrepreneur's brutal childhood fueled his frenzied achievements in space, AI, brain chips, and electric cars. GET WIRED Get WIRED for just $29.99 $5. That includes subscriber-only content like Steven Levy's Plaintext column, plus free stickers! Subscribe now. ADVERTISEMENT Have questions or comments? Reply to this email.   This email was sent to you by WIRED. To ensure delivery to your inbox (not bulk or junk folders), please add our email address, wired@newsletters.wired.com, to your address book.   View our Privacy Policy Unsubscribe or manage your newsletter subscriptions