A leading geneticist explores what promises to be one of the most transformative advances in health and medicine in historyAlmost every week, another exciting headline appears about new advances in the field of genetics. Genetic testing is experiencing the kind of exponential growth once seen with the birth of the Internet, while the plummeting cost of DNA sequencing makes it increasingly accessible for individuals and families.Steven Lipkin and Jon Luoma p...

The #1 NEW YORK TIMES BestsellerThe basis for the PBS Ken Burns Documentary The Gene: An Intimate HistoryNow includes an excerpt from Siddhartha Mukherjee**’**s new book Song of the Cell!From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies—a fascinating history of the gene and “a magisterial account of how human minds have laboriously, ingen...

BY THE WINNER OF THE 2020 NOBEL PRIZE IN CHEMISTRY | Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize“A powerful mix of science and ethics . . . This book is required reading for every concerned citizen—the material it covers should be discussed in schools, colleges, and universities throughout the country.”— New York Review of BooksNot since the atomic bomb has a technology so alarmed its inventors that they warned the world...

All of us have lurking in our DNA a most remarkable gene, which has a crucial job – it protects us from cancer. Known simply as p53, this gene constantly scans our cells to ensure that they grow and divide without mishap, as part of the routine maintenance of our bodies. If a cell makes a mistake in copying its DNA during the process of division, p53 stops it in its tracks, summoning a repair team before allowing the cell to carry on dividing. If the mistake is irreparable and the rogue ce...

A science reporter's account of a family, a genetic illness, and one courageous daughter who decides her fate shall no longer be decided by a genetic flaw."A moving, suspenseful page-turner . . . Recalls two other classic tales of medical anthropology, Rebbeca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Anne Fadiman's The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down." — The Washington PostThe phone rings; the doctor...

Would you change your genes if you could? As we confront the 'industrial revolution of the genome', the recent discoveries of Crispr-Cas9 technologies are offering, for the first time, cheap and effective methods for editing the human genome. This opens up startling new opportunities as well as significant ethical uncertainty. Tracing events across a fifty-year period, from the first gene splicing techniques to the present day, this is the story of gene editing - the science, the impact an...

Almost daily we hear news stories, advertisements, and scientific reports that promise genetic medicine will make us live longer, enable doctors to identify and treat diseases before they start, and individualize our medical care. But surprisingly, a century ago eugenicists were making the same promises. The Science of Human Perfection traces the history of the promises of medical genetics and of the medical dimension of eugenics. The book also considers social and ethical issues ...

Dental defects may be the physical expression of genetic defects, and so they can often be seen in a variety of syndromes associated with malformations of organs. However, dental defects are often not recognized, identified, nor characterised despite representing a possible diagnostic sign for an undiagnosed condition. This book addresses this gap by providing an understanding of dental genetics and its developmental biology counterpart. With approximately seventy well-illustrated examples...

The central question of this book is whether or not particular cell entities of human origin ought to be considered human beings. The answer is crucial for making moral decisions for or against research and experimentation. Experts in the field discuss the production of embryonic-like pluripotent stem cells by altered nuclear transfer, parthenogenesis and reprogramming of adult somatic cells. They thoroughly analyse the biological and moral status of different cell entities, such as human ...

Human gene transfer is widely regarded as one of the most promising technologies for the treatment of a variety of disorders, but it presents practitioners with a variety of difficult ethical questions. Gene Transfer and the Ethics of First-in-Human Research examines the ethical and policy dimensions of testing interventions in human beings for the first time. The book discusses the difficult ethical challenges that arise from attempting to translate laboratory discoveries into clinical ap...

The post-genomic era has brought new challenges and opportunities in all fields of the biology. In this context, several genome engineering technologies have emerged that will help deciphering genes function by as well as improve gene therapy strategies. Genomic modifications such as knock-in, knock-out, knock-down, sequence replacement or modification can today be routinely performed. However, in front of this large palette of methodologies scientists may experience difficulties to gather...

Advances in molecular genetics have led to the increasing availability of genetic testing for a variety of inherited disorders. While this new knowledge presents many obvious health benefits to prospective individuals and their families it also raises complex ethical and moral dilemmas for families as well as genetic professionals.This book explores the ways in which genetic testing generates not only probabilities of potential futures, but also enjoys new forms of social, individu...