Genetic Engineering

Genetic Engineering: How We Learned to Edit the Text We Are Made Of

Course-Research

Vita Harwood

Series "In Twelve Evenings" BOOK 37

What Do I Already Know About This?

Test your knowledge!

Can one wrong letter in DNA be corrected to treat an inherited disease? Why can a plant carrying thousands of random mutations be treated as conventional while a single targeted edit may face years of special regulation? And what changes when genome editing affects not one patient, but future generations?

Genetic Engineering follows the whole chain, from ten thousand years of selective breeding and the discovery of DNA to CRISPR, base and prime editing, GMOs, gene therapy, cell-based medicines, xenotransplantation, and heritable genome editing. It explains both what the technology can do and where it still runs into harder problems: delivery, cost, regulation, access, and bioethics.

The book is designed as twelve evenings of focused reading. Every lesson combines clear explanations with a scientist's story, a carefully checked surprising fact, key terms, a ten-question test, and a practical activity. A course-long "allow it / ban it" exercise asks readers to revise their own decisions as the evidence changes.

School-level biology is enough. Written for curious readers this short course offers a way to understand headlines about DNA, CRISPR, gene therapy, and biotechnology without hype and without the density of a university textbook. The course was fact-checked against primary sources through mid-2026.