Book: A Crack In Creation by Jennifer A. Doudna and Samuel H. Sternberg

See how the letters in yellow are all DNA-related?
Adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine. (Like in the movie GATTACA.)

Book: A Crack In Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution
by Jennifer A. Doudna and Samuel H. Sternberg
published by Mariner Books / Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York
2017

Imagine not only having the scientific skills to be recognized with a Nobel Prize, but also the communication ability to explain the scientific landscape context in which you did it, AND the basics of the science? You don’t have to just imagine it: you can read this book!

Doudna and Sternberg describe this important technology well. My own limited summary of what they’ve proven would be: bacterial chromosomes store DNA snippets of viruses they encounter, which they use to mount a precise defense against viruses; the way they store the information is so consistent that it works like a programming language; and these precision DNA-targeting defenses are useful for scientists to make precise modifications to DNA.

This impressive book describes past and current developments in genetic editing, tools and approaches (including Zinc Finger Nucleases and Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nucleases), what other scientists were discovering, and Doudna’s work with many collaborators on developing CRISPR Cas9 into a useful tool for human scientists. I appreciate the authors’ work in identifying and crediting other actors in this space, and how the collective contributions to overall knowledge supported further discoveries.

Doudna and Sternberg write clearly about very complex topics, and do a great job of covering this technology at a high enough level that non-biochemist readers can grasp the general concepts without needing to fully understand the mechanics of it all. (There were times when they were working on one problem, and tested it by developing a tool that seemed just as hard as the problem they were trying to address, which both impressed and surprised me, catching me up further to the current state of what is possible. )

The book continues beyond the science of how CRISPR Cas9 works into the ethical implications of being able to impact our own evolution, which is a discussion Doudna is actively promoting. The book suggests that the scientific community’s expanding knowledge of genetic disorders appears to be pointing toward good, single-mutation candidates for potential therapeutic treatments in humans, but that more complex conditions would require other solutions, and that we need much more data – and some difficult ethical conversations – to determine whether to change human genes in an inheritable way.

I did object to a few positions in the book which speculated on using technology to favor business interests over consumer demands, the environment, and animal welfare. These positions may attract investment from “Big Ag” while turning off the public.
Doudna compares CRISPR to Big Ag’s Genetically Modified Organism campaigns, and blames consumers for not embracing the self-serving objectives of Ag corporations. The industry modifications were intended to consolidate business, not benefit consumers or meet any specific consumer demand. Consumers should not be expected to embrace products which do not directly benefit them. Various national laws, including those in the EU and India, have recognized that GMO use is not a purely scientific matter, but one of industry consolidation and domination, and one which has environmental impacts.
While the UN Climate organizations are advising us to dramatically reduce animal agriculture, the authors here see engineering animals to eat more favorably than our global crisis or public health require.
The concept of animal welfare is raised but not meaningfully addressed, or is addressed in an industry-over-animals point of view. (Writing on animal welfare should NOT make me think of internet jokes about inert monsters produced for fast food chains!)

CRISPR Cas9 has vast potential as a tool to improve human health in the area of genetic diseases – what a time to be alive! – and the complex process of determining appropriate priorities and ethical frames for this important work still lie ahead. This is a clear, thoughtful, informative book for learning more about this technology and the ethical concerns this technology creates.

Art: Pan American Unity by Diego Rivera on view at SFMoMA

The colors! THE COLORS! It’s been {forever and a day} since I last saw this, and it is glorious. A really powerful mural. It’s in the free-to-the-public SFMoMA lobby on Howard. Go see it.

Climate Emergency: California fires (today, and for so many days)

The smoke hanging over us every day is a difficult and stressful reminder of what is happening to places we love.

Every day, the news names places I have been to, places I have hiked through, places I have photographed, and notes that these places are on fire at that very moment.

We aren’t yet at the phase where we fundamentally rethink how to live here, and how to be safer and more environmentally responsible, not just at an individual level – individuals can’t solve this alone! – but region-wide at a governmental, societal, and even corporate level. We really need to have those conversations. Soon.

Book: Zaha Hadid by Philip Jodidio

What would the architecture profession do without architectural photography?

Zaha Hadid
by Philip Jodidio
published by Taschen, Köln
2019

Before reviewing this book, I wish to disclose how I feel about deconstructivism, even though Hadid’s work is NOT the old meaning of THAT fad. I trained as an architect and worked in architecture in the late 80s and early 90s. In school, I had a few oppressively modernist instructors (as in the 1950s concept of modern) get very, very excited about abstract deconstructivist drawings of spaces which could not be built, and which had no human use. While they obsessed over floating red triangles, they still insisted that an ideal building was a Palladian villa. I’m not kidding. They couldn’t see where the movement was going. Also, the deconstructivist works they liked best could not be built on earth because of gravity. They completely missed the rebellion against simple forms that these fetishized, sharp drawings offered. Their enthusiasm for drawings with no application on earth put me off all such work for a long time. In the meantime, Hadid’s real world, mature work displays great characteristics which were implied by her early rebellion against simplistic geometries, which led me to this book.

This book is a profile of Zaha Hadid’s architectural practice, and the work of the global firm she founded, which continues to produce remarkable buildings consistent with her approach beyond her death. The Taschen Basic Art series is a collection of artist profile teasers, which get you started in your studies without committing you to a vast, oversized portfolio the size of your coffee table. It takes a light, greatest-hits touch, which was just right for me to familiarize myself with her recent work and help me overcome my misgivings around the early conceptual drawings I used to associate her with.

The essay by Jodidio is long, but it helped me clarify elements of her designs I like. I was pleased to read that she always worked with engineers up front, not at as an afterthought, which explains her innovative designs for walkways (such as the famous floating ramps and stairwells of the National Museum in Rome, and so many other cores of her buildings), which define many of her interiors for me. She incorporated and used below-grade spaces as essential spaces within her designs more visibly than many of her contemporaries, and this allowed for different circulation patterns, which also feel innovative. Her use of organic, fluid-appearing forms carries through her designs in a way I feel is superior to some of the others working on similar projects. Many of her theoretical drawings and early designs also anticipated computer-supported fabrication, so it sometimes feels like the technology caught up with her ideas.

The selection of projects is excellent, and the photography is well done, especially with respect to night scenes and interior lighting. (Hooray for architectural photography!)

I’m not entirely sold on all of the interior spaces. There are walls that melt down into the floor in a way that will tempt skateboarders, but foil pedestrians, and while those feel consistent with the intentions for the overall building forms, they sometimes look… leftover? I’ve been in her building in Seoul, and loved her plazas and bridges, but the interior spaces I entered were more cavernous than comfortable.

This book is an attractive and affordable introduction to the built work of an innovative architect whose portfolio feels both contemporary and futuristic.

For those of you who drink: the introductory essay creates an opportunity for a drinking game. Take a shot each time you encounter the words “seamless” or “chthonic.” You are also allowed to have an outburst each time a comparison to modernism is made.