Genetics

In this book, the distinguished geneticist David Botstein offers help and advice to scientists and physicians daunted by the arcane technical terms that flourish in his discipline. The science of gene function has a vocabulary of specialized, sometimes confusing terms to explain how traits anddiseases are inherited, how genes are organized and regulated in the genome, and how the genetic code is read and translated by cells. These terms are often a barrier to full understanding of the underlying concepts. Yet, as more and more individuals learn about their genomes, the information thesesequences contain cannot be understood or explained without reference to the basic ideas of genetics. Botstein draws on his long experience as a teacher and pioneering scientist to explain and illuminate what many genetic terms mean and how they entered common usage.

How tiny variations in our personal DNA can determine how we look, how we behave, how we get sick, and how we get well. News stories report almost daily on the remarkable progress scientists are making in unraveling the genetic basis of disease and behavior. Meanwhile, new technologies are rapidly reducing the cost of reading someone's personal DNA (all six billion letters of it). Within the next ten years, hospitals may present parents with their newborn's complete DNA code along with her footprints and APGAR score. In Genetic Twists of Fate, distinguished geneticists Stanley Fields and Mark Johnston help us make sense of the genetic revolution that is upon us. Fields and Johnston tell real life stories that hinge on the inheritance of one tiny change rather than another in an individual's DNA: a mother wrongly accused of poisoning her young son when the true killer was a genetic disorder; the screen siren who could no longer remember her lines because of Alzheimer's disease; and the president who was treated with rat poison to prevent another heart attack. In an engaging and accessible style, Fields and Johnston explain what our personal DNA code is, how a few differences in its long list of DNA letters makes each of us unique, and how that code influences our appearance, our behavior, and our risk for such common diseases as diabetes or cancer.

What happens when universal truth comes face-to-face with inexorable progress? Since the advent of life, every creature has been beholden to its genetic blueprint; drawn at conception, it is Article I of an immutable compact with the laws of nature.But mankind has never fully bought into that covenant, and human history is woven out of our perpetual attempts to renegotiate. The latest manifestations of this timeless quest are major developments in DNA science and technology. These quantum leaps have positioned mankind before an almost inconceivable array of opportunities-and with them a daunting vortex of ethical and social issues - to influence or even determine our individual and collective destinies.The Genomics Age is your guide to this startling new reality, a very near future in which science will empower us to make decisions with profound biological, moral, economic, and societal implications. Gina Smith, an internationally renowned, award-winning journalist whose work has given popular audiences insight into complex science issues for years, explains the history and technology behind these advances, and probes the fundamental questions they pose: Can we conquer cancer and other diseases once and for all? Learn why the majority of cancer specialists believe that most cancers will be cured - within the next twenty years.Will we ever bridge the ideological, religious, and political divides in the stem cell debate? See how the two sides agree much more often than not.Does the rush to develop anti-aging drugs mean we are on the verge of finding the fountain of youth? Learn how a scientist keeps lab worms fit and healthy - while sextupling their lifespans.As we eliminate disease,pick and choose the attributes of our children, and discover yet-to-be-conceived applications of DNA science, will cracking the very code of life change what it means to be human? In the history of mankind, few scientific phenomena have so profoundly altered the human experience as will the DNA technology revolution. As we grapple with the promise and challenge of a truly new frontier, we must all educate ourselves about the what, even as we seek to answer the infinitely larger question of why? The Genomics Age is the perfect starting point." "

"Consider just three of Earth’s inhabitants: a bright yellow daffodil that greets the spring, the single­celled creature called Thermococcus that lives in boiling hot springs, and you. Even a science­fiction writer inventing a story set on a distant planet could hardly imagine three more different forms of life. Yet you, Thermococcus and the daffodil are related! Indeed, all of the Earth’s billions of living things are kin to each other." - works with BIO 222