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The Gene: An Intimate History
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Best Science & Technology (2016)Spanning the globe and several centuries, The Gene is the story of the quest to decipher the master-code that makes and defines humans, that governs our form and function.
The story of the gene begins in an obscure Augustinian abbey in Moravia in 1856 where a monk stumbles on the idea of a ‘unit of heredity’. It intersects with Darwin’s theory of evolution, and collides with the horrors of Nazi eugenics in the 1940s. The gene transforms post-war biology. It reorganizes our understanding of sexuality, temperament, choice and free will. This is a story driven by human ingenuity and obsessive minds – from Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel to Francis Crick, James Watson and Rosalind Franklin, and the thousands of scientists still working to understand the code of codes.
This is an epic, moving history of a scientific idea coming to life, by the author of The Emperor of All Maladies. But woven through The Gene, like a red line, is also an intimate history – the story of Mukherjee’s own family and its recurring pattern of mental illness, reminding us that genetics is vitally relevant to everyday lives. These concerns reverberate even more urgently today as we learn to “read” and “write” the human genome – unleashing the potential to change the fates and identities of our children.
Majestic in its ambition, and unflinching in its honesty, The Gene gives us a definitive account of the fundamental unit of heredity – and a vision of both humanity’s past and future.
The story of the gene begins in an obscure Augustinian abbey in Moravia in 1856 where a monk stumbles on the idea of a ‘unit of heredity’. It intersects with Darwin’s theory of evolution, and collides with the horrors of Nazi eugenics in the 1940s. The gene transforms post-war biology. It reorganizes our understanding of sexuality, temperament, choice and free will. This is a story driven by human ingenuity and obsessive minds – from Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel to Francis Crick, James Watson and Rosalind Franklin, and the thousands of scientists still working to understand the code of codes.
This is an epic, moving history of a scientific idea coming to life, by the author of The Emperor of All Maladies. But woven through The Gene, like a red line, is also an intimate history – the story of Mukherjee’s own family and its recurring pattern of mental illness, reminding us that genetics is vitally relevant to everyday lives. These concerns reverberate even more urgently today as we learn to “read” and “write” the human genome – unleashing the potential to change the fates and identities of our children.
Majestic in its ambition, and unflinching in its honesty, The Gene gives us a definitive account of the fundamental unit of heredity – and a vision of both humanity’s past and future.
592 pages, Hardcover
First published June 2, 2016
About the author
Siddhartha Mukherjee
37 books5,320 followersSiddhartha Mukherjee (Bengali: সিদ্ধার্থ মুখার্জী) is a cancer physician and researcher. He is an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and a staff cancer physician at Columbia University Medical Center. A Rhodes scholar, he graduated from Stanford University, University of Oxford, Harvard Medical School. He has published articles in Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine, The New York Times, and The New Republic. He lives in New York with his wife and daughters.
His book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction.
His book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 4,497 reviews
October 13, 2016
I have this tendency, when I read a book as brilliantly informing as this one, to wipe the froth from my mouth, shuffle the pages of notes I've written contemporaneous to the reading, and plunge into the cocktail party which is this forum, grabbing each of you by the virtual lapels, and launching into a lecture about one of the hundreds of things I learned in the process. As if, you know, I missed some of the froth.
So, imagine me back from some journey, casting pleasantries aside, and launching wild-eyed and, yes, maybe a little frothy, insisting that you grasp the fraction of what I've learned via the fraction of my ability to explain, as if it is the most important thing in the world. Until next week's book and next week's cocktail party, that is. Passionate and off-putting. Aware, but unable to stop myself. Yup, that's me. But I have a defense.
There's probably a gene that makes me so.
Seems I got more than blue eyes from Mom, more than dark hair from Dad. There are many chambers of the human heart and many caverns in the human mind, but they are all there somewhere pinned onto the genome which is Tony.
--This book is worth the read just for the section on sickle-cell anemia, or the one explaining the genetic basis for sexual identity, or the story of Mitochondrial Eve.
--Did you know that when the Allied forces entered the Nazi death camps, they found an inordinate number of twins among the survivors. This was so because Mengele was fascinated by Zwillinge? These survivors, sharing as they did identical genetic markers, served as the subjects of much subsequent genetic research.
--The problem with racial discrimination . . . is not the inference of a person's race from their genetic characteristics. It is quite the opposite: it is the inference of a person's characteristics from their race. But, I've now learned, "the vast proportion of genetic diversity (85 to 90 percent) occurs within so-called races (i.e., within Asians or Africans) and only a minor proportion (7 percent) between racial groups..."
--I knew the story of Carrie Buck, legally sterilized after an Opinion by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes stating "Three generations of imbeciles is enough." But Mukherjee lets that story hover over us as he takes us to a lecture he attended in 2013, a lecture given by a fifteen year-old girl named Erika, who suffered from a severe, progressive degenerative disease, causing muscle tremors that progressively worsened. She tried new drugs, clinical trials. Nothing worked. Yet there she was speaking to this hall of scientists, "by far, among the most articulate, introspective teenagers that I have ever encountered." A prenatal test to find the mutations that caused Erika's condition is theoretically possible. We could, bluntly, prevent future Erikas. Mukherjee lets us ponder this as he watches Erika being pushed by her mother across a parking lot in her wheelchair, "her scarf billowing behind her, like an epilogue."
It's that last little bit, that fragment of a quote like a piece of DNA, that I hope exposes why this book had such a purchase on me. It's not just that Mukherjee can take a very complicated scientific subject and make it understandable. It's that he does so with really gorgeous writing.
At one point he is explaining how 'we' got here, how 'humans' began on an arid mesa in South Africa and, from there, "went west, as young men often do..." The migrants made it to the northeastern edge of Ethiopia or Egypt, "where the Red Sea narrows to a slitlike strait." And then he writes this:
There was no one there to part the ocean. We do not know what drove these men and women to fling themselves across the water, or how they managed to cross it. . . What is certain is that every perilous ocean-crossing left hardly any survivors--perhaps as few as six hundred men and women. Europeans, Asians, Australians, and Americans are the descendants of these drastic bottlenecks, and this corkscrew of history too has left its signature in our genomes. In a genetic sense, nearly all of us who emerged out of Africa, gasping for land and air, are even more closely yoked than previously imagined. We were on the same boat, brother.
The same but different; different but the same.
I'll stop there, having no doubt expressed my enthusiasm better than my understanding of human genetics. I'll stop even though the clicker below says I have 15,480 characters left, or about 500 less than the number of genes in one of my cells. But one of the truly entertaining parts of this book was the author's use of quotes. So, since I'm feeling epigrammy, I'll add my favorites to the comments.
Bye. I have to go.
So, imagine me back from some journey, casting pleasantries aside, and launching wild-eyed and, yes, maybe a little frothy, insisting that you grasp the fraction of what I've learned via the fraction of my ability to explain, as if it is the most important thing in the world. Until next week's book and next week's cocktail party, that is. Passionate and off-putting. Aware, but unable to stop myself. Yup, that's me. But I have a defense.
There's probably a gene that makes me so.
Seems I got more than blue eyes from Mom, more than dark hair from Dad. There are many chambers of the human heart and many caverns in the human mind, but they are all there somewhere pinned onto the genome which is Tony.
--This book is worth the read just for the section on sickle-cell anemia, or the one explaining the genetic basis for sexual identity, or the story of Mitochondrial Eve.
--Did you know that when the Allied forces entered the Nazi death camps, they found an inordinate number of twins among the survivors. This was so because Mengele was fascinated by Zwillinge? These survivors, sharing as they did identical genetic markers, served as the subjects of much subsequent genetic research.
--The problem with racial discrimination . . . is not the inference of a person's race from their genetic characteristics. It is quite the opposite: it is the inference of a person's characteristics from their race. But, I've now learned, "the vast proportion of genetic diversity (85 to 90 percent) occurs within so-called races (i.e., within Asians or Africans) and only a minor proportion (7 percent) between racial groups..."
--I knew the story of Carrie Buck, legally sterilized after an Opinion by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes stating "Three generations of imbeciles is enough." But Mukherjee lets that story hover over us as he takes us to a lecture he attended in 2013, a lecture given by a fifteen year-old girl named Erika, who suffered from a severe, progressive degenerative disease, causing muscle tremors that progressively worsened. She tried new drugs, clinical trials. Nothing worked. Yet there she was speaking to this hall of scientists, "by far, among the most articulate, introspective teenagers that I have ever encountered." A prenatal test to find the mutations that caused Erika's condition is theoretically possible. We could, bluntly, prevent future Erikas. Mukherjee lets us ponder this as he watches Erika being pushed by her mother across a parking lot in her wheelchair, "her scarf billowing behind her, like an epilogue."
It's that last little bit, that fragment of a quote like a piece of DNA, that I hope exposes why this book had such a purchase on me. It's not just that Mukherjee can take a very complicated scientific subject and make it understandable. It's that he does so with really gorgeous writing.
At one point he is explaining how 'we' got here, how 'humans' began on an arid mesa in South Africa and, from there, "went west, as young men often do..." The migrants made it to the northeastern edge of Ethiopia or Egypt, "where the Red Sea narrows to a slitlike strait." And then he writes this:
There was no one there to part the ocean. We do not know what drove these men and women to fling themselves across the water, or how they managed to cross it. . . What is certain is that every perilous ocean-crossing left hardly any survivors--perhaps as few as six hundred men and women. Europeans, Asians, Australians, and Americans are the descendants of these drastic bottlenecks, and this corkscrew of history too has left its signature in our genomes. In a genetic sense, nearly all of us who emerged out of Africa, gasping for land and air, are even more closely yoked than previously imagined. We were on the same boat, brother.
The same but different; different but the same.
I'll stop there, having no doubt expressed my enthusiasm better than my understanding of human genetics. I'll stop even though the clicker below says I have 15,480 characters left, or about 500 less than the number of genes in one of my cells. But one of the truly entertaining parts of this book was the author's use of quotes. So, since I'm feeling epigrammy, I'll add my favorites to the comments.
Bye. I have to go.
May 14, 2020
I think this was really good, and even better than The Emperor of All Maladies which I just read recently as well. I might have enjoyed this one more because it's relevant to my current day to day thing though. I really liked the way it ties in the personal elements of genetics through out the book and how it acknowledges really important questions of what we actually deem normal and healthy. I feel like a lot of times there isn't as much acknowledgement of the tradeoffs made when trying to eliminate genetic variants that in this current environment are maladaptive or considered pathological but may confer other advantages in a different environment. Also I think there isn't as much acknowledgement that we don't know enough to even say if a specific variant is abnormal, in the colloquial sense, and what the downstream effects might be to eliminating that specific variant. I think Mukherjee did a great job reckoning with that here. I also just really like have historical context and things explained to me accessibly but in a thorough fashion. This was really great, definitely going to end up being one of the better books I read this year.
February 24, 2017
Hello bookish peeps,
Another one of my review has been posted on our country's largest daily newspaper's website, The Times of India.
"This book is the story of the birth, growth, and future of one of the most powerful and dangerous ideas in the history of science: the "gene," the fundamental unit of heredity, and the basic unit of all biological information. I"
~Siddhartha Mukherjee
The 2011 Pulitzer Prize winner, Siddhartha Mukherjee, is back with another incredibly well-written book, The Gene: An Intimate History that unfolds the extensive and profound knowledge and research about human genome and its genetics that reflects beyond the definition of both basic and advanced science. The above quote by the author, himself, simply outlines the story line of this in-depth and thorough yet intimidating book about genes.
Since the primeval times, it has been observed that living organisms can pass down attributes to their offspring, who can then pass down to their own children and so on. The author begins his book with Gregor Johann Mendel, a scientist, who observed the nature of genes in pea plants by isolating them to discover the transmissible characteristics in pea plants. Thomas Hunt Morgan, who in the early 20th century observed a study on fruit flies to state the real location of genes in a living organism's cell. The author has mathematically noted down each milestone in genetic science in this book, rather descriptively. But with all this, the author ensures that his readers do not lose their focus from the fact that study of genes is not anymore just a progressive or evolutionary aspect in science and medicines, rather it is a study and observation about how an individual is insufficiently deciphering the technological advancement in the science of genetics as well as the study of oneself.
Siddhartha Mukherjee sweepingly shares his own Bengali-family medical and genetic history through this book. This includes his father with a genetically challenged brain illness, his mother and her twin sisters and the sudden onset of schizophrenia among his cousins and uncles, thereby inducing fear for the future generations and shock and knowledge about the unknown genetic defects underlying in his family history of hereditary.
The author's writing has a lot of gravity, meaning and research affixed with true facts, that might or might not be able to bring a change among the readers to look at this scientific study of genes and its underlying messages in a different way, but it will definitely open the tight-shut windows about human genome in the minds of the readers. In a crux, the book will gracefully enlighten the readers. The narrative is articulate and I believe the book is written in a way that even if you are not accustomed to big scientific and medical terminologies, they can easily be comprehended.
Please follow the link below to read my review:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/li...
Thank you!
Another one of my review has been posted on our country's largest daily newspaper's website, The Times of India.
"This book is the story of the birth, growth, and future of one of the most powerful and dangerous ideas in the history of science: the "gene," the fundamental unit of heredity, and the basic unit of all biological information. I"
~Siddhartha Mukherjee
The 2011 Pulitzer Prize winner, Siddhartha Mukherjee, is back with another incredibly well-written book, The Gene: An Intimate History that unfolds the extensive and profound knowledge and research about human genome and its genetics that reflects beyond the definition of both basic and advanced science. The above quote by the author, himself, simply outlines the story line of this in-depth and thorough yet intimidating book about genes.
Since the primeval times, it has been observed that living organisms can pass down attributes to their offspring, who can then pass down to their own children and so on. The author begins his book with Gregor Johann Mendel, a scientist, who observed the nature of genes in pea plants by isolating them to discover the transmissible characteristics in pea plants. Thomas Hunt Morgan, who in the early 20th century observed a study on fruit flies to state the real location of genes in a living organism's cell. The author has mathematically noted down each milestone in genetic science in this book, rather descriptively. But with all this, the author ensures that his readers do not lose their focus from the fact that study of genes is not anymore just a progressive or evolutionary aspect in science and medicines, rather it is a study and observation about how an individual is insufficiently deciphering the technological advancement in the science of genetics as well as the study of oneself.
Siddhartha Mukherjee sweepingly shares his own Bengali-family medical and genetic history through this book. This includes his father with a genetically challenged brain illness, his mother and her twin sisters and the sudden onset of schizophrenia among his cousins and uncles, thereby inducing fear for the future generations and shock and knowledge about the unknown genetic defects underlying in his family history of hereditary.
The author's writing has a lot of gravity, meaning and research affixed with true facts, that might or might not be able to bring a change among the readers to look at this scientific study of genes and its underlying messages in a different way, but it will definitely open the tight-shut windows about human genome in the minds of the readers. In a crux, the book will gracefully enlighten the readers. The narrative is articulate and I believe the book is written in a way that even if you are not accustomed to big scientific and medical terminologies, they can easily be comprehended.
Please follow the link below to read my review:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/li...
Thank you!
February 10, 2017
I listened to the BBC abridged audio book as I often do before ordering it. I like hardbacks so I try and be sure first I want to read it. I didn't like it enough. I loved The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer but couldn't feel that deep interest with this one.
Now it could be that the book is fantastic and it had a lousy editor at the BBC. Oliver Sacks autobiography, On the Move: A Life is a 10 star book, but the abridged BBC one is terrible, mostly the wrong episodes chosen. But still, the book was full of Mukherjee's usual overly-detailed extremely long passages and I couldn't get anything from them, so ... on to the next book. (But I might still order it in hardback because I think this is one of the books I might be wrong about)>
Now it could be that the book is fantastic and it had a lousy editor at the BBC. Oliver Sacks autobiography, On the Move: A Life is a 10 star book, but the abridged BBC one is terrible, mostly the wrong episodes chosen. But still, the book was full of Mukherjee's usual overly-detailed extremely long passages and I couldn't get anything from them, so ... on to the next book. (But I might still order it in hardback because I think this is one of the books I might be wrong about)>
June 6, 2017
Not half as good a narrative as The Emperor of All Maladies, but still a good account of the Gene's journey and where it is going. It will hold your attention even if you have read multiple accounts of the progress of Genetics such as Watson's, because most histories of the Gene focus on the Genome project or on the early phase of discovery of genetics, Mukherjee instead focuses on the applications that are currently ongoing and how those fields have developed.
My only complaint: the focus of the book is on the Human Gene and hence on Medicine, while the story of the Gene is surely about much more than medicine - extending to Food, Evolution, Economics and perhaps Politics - the Gene has a very wide role to play in our future and we need to develop perspective on that future today. Mukherjee gives a glimpse of where Medicine is going, but perhaps could also have shown us where We are going.
My only complaint: the focus of the book is on the Human Gene and hence on Medicine, while the story of the Gene is surely about much more than medicine - extending to Food, Evolution, Economics and perhaps Politics - the Gene has a very wide role to play in our future and we need to develop perspective on that future today. Mukherjee gives a glimpse of where Medicine is going, but perhaps could also have shown us where We are going.
March 19, 2021
هذه تحفة فنية كاملة مكتملة
ليت كل كتاب في العلوم يكون على هذه الشاكلة
هذا الرجل يقدم لك العلم بطريقة لا تشبه أحدا
مبهر حقا
وحميم بالفعل
ولا يغادر قلبك أو عقلك بسهولة أبدا
August 6, 2017
In this beautifully written, vivid history of genetics; Mukherjee takes us by the hand and walks us through the hall of fame of all the people who are the reason for modern biology as we study it today. His picturesque descriptions make the book a joy to read.
Starting with Mendel and ending with embryonic stem cell research and beyond; the fascinating story of genetic research is given in the book. There are life stories of many exceptional scientists. Unfortunately many examples of bad science and faux-scientists can also be found. I am particularly glad that Rosalind Franklin (who died at age 36 due to ovarian cancer; most likely because of Xray exposure from her experiments) and her work (without which DNA structure would not have been understood) is given the importance and acknowledgement in this book.
Students of medicine, biology and related fields as well as anyone with an interest in the history and future of science will enjoy and learn a lot from The Gene.
Starting with Mendel and ending with embryonic stem cell research and beyond; the fascinating story of genetic research is given in the book. There are life stories of many exceptional scientists. Unfortunately many examples of bad science and faux-scientists can also be found. I am particularly glad that Rosalind Franklin (who died at age 36 due to ovarian cancer; most likely because of Xray exposure from her experiments) and her work (without which DNA structure would not have been understood) is given the importance and acknowledgement in this book.
Students of medicine, biology and related fields as well as anyone with an interest in the history and future of science will enjoy and learn a lot from The Gene.
October 10, 2018
Cannot begin to tell you what I learned from this fascinating study of The Gene but I gained great insight from the thorough research of Siddhartha Mukherjee. I am destined for a second read/listen. The audio narration by Dennis Boutsikaris made this compelling, very well paced with a distinct and pleasant tonal quality. Highly recommended.
February 10, 2017
Thanks goes to Netgalley and a wonderful author for a wonderfully told series of stories within the world of genetics.
I was worried, briefly, by the insistence of bringing Aristotle's take on the genome, or the recapitulation of many of the grandfathers of the science, such as Mendel and Darwin, but the way that these otherwise well-known personages were brought alive to the page was more of a story than a dry recounting. Even so, I wasn't prepared for what was soon to come.
I became engrossed in the history of American Eugenics, and even more so in Germany's frightful improvements, all of which painted the history of the science in quite a dark, and ignorant, light.
Fortunately for all of us, Crick, Watson, and Ferdinand come out swinging and we can see this all as a heroic step forward... even considering the fact that Ferdinand never got to see her work truly recognized.
From here on out, we've got truly wonderful tales of Beck and the birth of recombinant DNA, scientists self-policing, the rise of multinational bio-engineering firms, AIDS, gene therapies, genome mapping, and of course cloning and stem-cell blocking, and each and every one of these stories are bright and very readable.
And what's more, it's always informative and it's always interesting. It even draws us in to the author's own deep and emotional familial history and his own drive to understand.
I'll make no bones about it: I was moved.
I've read more than a handful of books on genetics in the past, and while some were quite good and some were sometimes mesmerizingly boring, I think this one has got to be the most readable, grab you on the human level, and most in depth survey of the entire field that I've ever read.
So many disparate characteristics managed to encode the proteins of the narrative, and no one could be happier than me to see such a healthy and shining phenotypical expression be borne from a popular book. It's classy and smart. Very smart. In fact, it's pretty much a must-have if you're a science-history buff bringing us up to the cutting-edge present and want a few questions for the future. :)
I was worried, briefly, by the insistence of bringing Aristotle's take on the genome, or the recapitulation of many of the grandfathers of the science, such as Mendel and Darwin, but the way that these otherwise well-known personages were brought alive to the page was more of a story than a dry recounting. Even so, I wasn't prepared for what was soon to come.
I became engrossed in the history of American Eugenics, and even more so in Germany's frightful improvements, all of which painted the history of the science in quite a dark, and ignorant, light.
Fortunately for all of us, Crick, Watson, and Ferdinand come out swinging and we can see this all as a heroic step forward... even considering the fact that Ferdinand never got to see her work truly recognized.
From here on out, we've got truly wonderful tales of Beck and the birth of recombinant DNA, scientists self-policing, the rise of multinational bio-engineering firms, AIDS, gene therapies, genome mapping, and of course cloning and stem-cell blocking, and each and every one of these stories are bright and very readable.
And what's more, it's always informative and it's always interesting. It even draws us in to the author's own deep and emotional familial history and his own drive to understand.
I'll make no bones about it: I was moved.
I've read more than a handful of books on genetics in the past, and while some were quite good and some were sometimes mesmerizingly boring, I think this one has got to be the most readable, grab you on the human level, and most in depth survey of the entire field that I've ever read.
So many disparate characteristics managed to encode the proteins of the narrative, and no one could be happier than me to see such a healthy and shining phenotypical expression be borne from a popular book. It's classy and smart. Very smart. In fact, it's pretty much a must-have if you're a science-history buff bringing us up to the cutting-edge present and want a few questions for the future. :)
July 2, 2020
معلم زیستِ سه سال راهنماییم، خانوم میم، خیلی خیلی سختگیر بود، اون موقع یه کتاب سیصد چهار صد صفحهای داشتیم اسمش مرآت زیست شناسیِ راهنمایی بود، کتاب به نظرم هیچ ربطی به سرفصلهای کتاب درسیِ آموزش و پرورش نداشت و خب تو مدرسهی ما هم کتاب درسی آموزش پرورش درس داده نمیشد، به هر حال، اون کتاب و تستاش که الآن میدونم نویسنده کتاب کار خاصی نکرده بود و فقط مبحثهایِ دبیرستان رو برای بچههای ۱۲/۱۳سالهای که تازه علوم دبستان رو تموم کرده بودن آورده بود کابوس سه سال راهنمایی ما به حساب میومد...
دوم راهنمایی بودم، یه روز وقتی طبق محاسباتمون از روی کتاب مرآت باید به ژنتیک میرسیدیم خانوم میم گفت ژنتیک سخته واستون، درس نمیدم...
همین یه جمله باعث شد من تموم فصل ژنتیک رو بخونم، تستای بقیه فصلا رو نصفه نیمه حل کرده بودم اما ژنتیک رو کامل و بیغلط حل کنم،دو سال بعد که اول دبیرستان بودم تو کتابخونهی بزرگ مدرسه دنبال کتابای ژنتیک میگشتم و یه قفسه پر از این کتابا، ردیف آخر کتابخونه بود و فقط و فقط خودم میخوندمشون و روزایی که معلم زیستای دبیرستانم ژنتیک درس میدادن،روزای خوشبختی من بود، بچهها هنوز سوالای اول بودن و من تموم سوالارو حل میکردم و خب اون روزا گذشت...
سیکل کنکور باعث شد بفهمم به ژنتیک باید به اندازه سه چهارتا سوال از پنجاه تا سوال زیست، اهمیت بدم.حتی کمکم یادم رفت که یه روزایی رؤیام این بود که برم دانشگاه، ژنتیک بخونم و خسته و کوفته از دانشگاه برگردم و سعی کنم اونقدر با کروموزوما رفیق بشم که بتونم بعضی ژناشون رو خاموش کنم بعضیارو روشن و از یه تار موی آدمی که قلبش از کار افتاده یه قلب بسازم و ببرم بذارم سرجاش اما نشد دیگه...
داشت همهی اینا یادم میرفت، تو روزمرگی زندگیم دنبال یه مسیر دیگه بودم، مسیری که هیچ ردی از ژنتیک تو آیندهم ازش نیست اما یهو طبق روال زندگیم پنجشنبه صبحها، یک هفته درمیون، پادکست بیپلاس رو گوش میکردم که پرت شدم به همون روزا، به روزایی که های دلم میخواست واسه مظلومیت مندل اشک بریزم، مندل، تنها معشوقهی من تو دنیای زیست شناسی بود.
و دلم دوباره همون روزایی رو خواست که با موهای ژولیده میتونستم ساعتها مسئله ژنتیک حل کنم...
پینوشت:پادکستِ گزیدهی این کتاب رو میتونید تو صفحه بیپلاس، اپیزود ۴۱ بشنوید.
https://soundcloud.com/bplus-podcast/...
دوم راهنمایی بودم، یه روز وقتی طبق محاسباتمون از روی کتاب مرآت باید به ژنتیک میرسیدیم خانوم میم گفت ژنتیک سخته واستون، درس نمیدم...
همین یه جمله باعث شد من تموم فصل ژنتیک رو بخونم، تستای بقیه فصلا رو نصفه نیمه حل کرده بودم اما ژنتیک رو کامل و بیغلط حل کنم،دو سال بعد که اول دبیرستان بودم تو کتابخونهی بزرگ مدرسه دنبال کتابای ژنتیک میگشتم و یه قفسه پر از این کتابا، ردیف آخر کتابخونه بود و فقط و فقط خودم میخوندمشون و روزایی که معلم زیستای دبیرستانم ژنتیک درس میدادن،روزای خوشبختی من بود، بچهها هنوز سوالای اول بودن و من تموم سوالارو حل میکردم و خب اون روزا گذشت...
سیکل کنکور باعث شد بفهمم به ژنتیک باید به اندازه سه چهارتا سوال از پنجاه تا سوال زیست، اهمیت بدم.حتی کمکم یادم رفت که یه روزایی رؤیام این بود که برم دانشگاه، ژنتیک بخونم و خسته و کوفته از دانشگاه برگردم و سعی کنم اونقدر با کروموزوما رفیق بشم که بتونم بعضی ژناشون رو خاموش کنم بعضیارو روشن و از یه تار موی آدمی که قلبش از کار افتاده یه قلب بسازم و ببرم بذارم سرجاش اما نشد دیگه...
داشت همهی اینا یادم میرفت، تو روزمرگی زندگیم دنبال یه مسیر دیگه بودم، مسیری که هیچ ردی از ژنتیک تو آیندهم ازش نیست اما یهو طبق روال زندگیم پنجشنبه صبحها، یک هفته درمیون، پادکست بیپلاس رو گوش میکردم که پرت شدم به همون روزا، به روزایی که های دلم میخواست واسه مظلومیت مندل اشک بریزم، مندل، تنها معشوقهی من تو دنیای زیست شناسی بود.
و دلم دوباره همون روزایی رو خواست که با موهای ژولیده میتونستم ساعتها مسئله ژنتیک حل کنم...
پینوشت:پادکستِ گزیدهی این کتاب رو میتونید تو صفحه بیپلاس، اپیزود ۴۱ بشنوید.
https://soundcloud.com/bplus-podcast/...
September 28, 2016
I'm not going to lie, there were some pages of this book where all my mind saw was 'science science science science' etc etc over and over again instead of the actual words which apparently make sense to people cleverer than me.
Happily though, the vast majority of the book is written in a more engaging and approachable fashion. Nevertheless, it clearly represents a vast amount of research, spanning the field from Aristotle to the present day. It plots the path of ever increasing knowledge and more specific theories about the means of heredity. Detailed descriptions of research, the individuals and teams who undertook it, every step forward (and backwards), the social, moral, scientific, and political implications of new information and techniques- all these things and more Mukherjee has addressed in this biography of the gene. His evaluative skill is piercing and never more so when looking at the dangers inherent in being able to modify our very nature. Of course, eugenics and the Nazis are covered, but he casts the net wider, into forced sterilisations in America and movements in the UK to create 'better' people. Not only that, he investigates the presence of these issues in contemporary society, asking whether our increasing capacity to make changes to our genes is balanced by a real understanding of the ethical implications. Yet he doesn't fail to point out how the lives of many people with certain genetic conditions have been vastly improved by the new science. As with so much of technological and scientific advancement, ideas about morality are inherently intertwined with the way it is actually used.
It was a compelling read, though challenging. Very much worth taking the time to understand an area that will, I think, come to affect our lives in more and more ways as the years pass.
Many thanks to Random House/Vintage and Netgalley for the chance to read this in exchange for an honest review.
Happily though, the vast majority of the book is written in a more engaging and approachable fashion. Nevertheless, it clearly represents a vast amount of research, spanning the field from Aristotle to the present day. It plots the path of ever increasing knowledge and more specific theories about the means of heredity. Detailed descriptions of research, the individuals and teams who undertook it, every step forward (and backwards), the social, moral, scientific, and political implications of new information and techniques- all these things and more Mukherjee has addressed in this biography of the gene. His evaluative skill is piercing and never more so when looking at the dangers inherent in being able to modify our very nature. Of course, eugenics and the Nazis are covered, but he casts the net wider, into forced sterilisations in America and movements in the UK to create 'better' people. Not only that, he investigates the presence of these issues in contemporary society, asking whether our increasing capacity to make changes to our genes is balanced by a real understanding of the ethical implications. Yet he doesn't fail to point out how the lives of many people with certain genetic conditions have been vastly improved by the new science. As with so much of technological and scientific advancement, ideas about morality are inherently intertwined with the way it is actually used.
It was a compelling read, though challenging. Very much worth taking the time to understand an area that will, I think, come to affect our lives in more and more ways as the years pass.
Many thanks to Random House/Vintage and Netgalley for the chance to read this in exchange for an honest review.
April 15, 2016
Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer's Prize winning book, "The Emperor of All Maladies"
scared the hell out of me right from the 'get go'....when I read that "1 in 4 people will get cancer in your lifetime".
Mukherjee dives right in again, ( wasting no time), in "The Gene".
We first learn that mental illness has been in Mukherjee's family for at least two generations. He shares personally with us about 4 different relatives: 2 cousins and two uncles -- ( from his father's side), whose minds were crumbling. --- Each with a little different story. It's clear Mukherjee isn't removed from his research in any shape or form.
There was even a time when Mukherjee himself went through troubled period - as a teenager. He stopped talking to his parents for six months, refused to turn in school homework, and threw books in the trash. Filled with anxiety, his father took him to a doctor fearing his son was losing his mind ( fearing another Mukherjee bites the dust).
Years later, when Mukherjee met Sarah, ( his wife today), he warned her about
the heredity component that lurked behind his family history.
In 2009, Swedish researchers published and enormous international study involving thousands of families and tens of thousands of men and women. It was discovered - with striking evidence that bipolar disease and schizophrenia shared strong genetic link.
Questions that lingered in Mukherjee' mind at the start of his research was ...( looking at each his cousins and uncles), if the illnesses are genetic, why were some family members spared? (Mukherjee' father's sister had been spared)
What 'triggers' had unveiled these predispositions? How much arose from 'nature'
and how much was due to environmental 'nurture'. Also, was Mukherjee a carrier?
What if he could know the precise nature of this genetic flaw? Would he test himself?
Would he inform his daughters?
If technologies were available -- who would control them and their safety?
Part I is about "the missing" science of heredity ....discovering and rediscovering genes.. dated from 1865 to 1935. He talks about theories from Aristotle and Pythagoras....and what each of them had right and what they had wrong.
Pythagoras's theory was that sperm carried all information to make a new human. Aristotle's theory was that heredity was carried in the form of messages to create materials ..( "it was the hand that carried the instructions to mold an embryo"). --
In time, both theories were demolished.
Mukherjee continues to describe how past prominent scientists, physicians, philosophers, historians, sociologists, anthropologist, biologists, linguists, theologist, etc. understood the function of the gene.....and how many of these educators fought furiously over the question of human origin. Charles Darwin, for example, gave rise to the most important synthesis in modern biology and the most powerful understanding of human heredity. --- yet here we are today in 2016-- and Mukherjee is all about the future - medical advances. I'm beginning to see why this book is important.
Embryology, inherited genes, chromosomes, .....so much information to keep taking in. Genetic information could be mixed, matched and swapped.
As a reader...about half way through the book -- it's easy to feel exhausted.
I put the book down...
Made some tea... and listened to to Siddhartha Mukherjee do a TED talk. His talk recharged my energy... I began to see the larger purpose of understanding what past experts believed - to learn about what their work contributed. It's only until really being able to see how we've been treating disease in the past -- can we begin to comprehend the re-organization of treating disease in the future. Mukherjee presented the idea that it's possible the gene will cure disease - rather than a pill.
This is a challenging book to read--yet fascinating -- not as hard to understand as one might think...just hard to stay with all the research. I needed breaks. ( I read other fiction stories at the same time)....
but this book is looks at all sides of genetics: genetic diversity, morality, ...( such as stem cell research -and eugenics)... -and what about predicting the future from genes. ..and alternating the destiny through genetic manipulation.
Medical advances seem to be moving faster than the speed of light. 11 months ago, I had a complete ankle replacement (a somewhat new and complicated surgery). I'm out hiking the hilly trails once again. Given how thankful I am for a working walking foot, I read this book with a hopeful fresh spirit for our future in the area of medical advancements.
Thank You Scribner Publishing, Netgalley, and Siddhartha Mukherjee
scared the hell out of me right from the 'get go'....when I read that "1 in 4 people will get cancer in your lifetime".
Mukherjee dives right in again, ( wasting no time), in "The Gene".
We first learn that mental illness has been in Mukherjee's family for at least two generations. He shares personally with us about 4 different relatives: 2 cousins and two uncles -- ( from his father's side), whose minds were crumbling. --- Each with a little different story. It's clear Mukherjee isn't removed from his research in any shape or form.
There was even a time when Mukherjee himself went through troubled period - as a teenager. He stopped talking to his parents for six months, refused to turn in school homework, and threw books in the trash. Filled with anxiety, his father took him to a doctor fearing his son was losing his mind ( fearing another Mukherjee bites the dust).
Years later, when Mukherjee met Sarah, ( his wife today), he warned her about
the heredity component that lurked behind his family history.
In 2009, Swedish researchers published and enormous international study involving thousands of families and tens of thousands of men and women. It was discovered - with striking evidence that bipolar disease and schizophrenia shared strong genetic link.
Questions that lingered in Mukherjee' mind at the start of his research was ...( looking at each his cousins and uncles), if the illnesses are genetic, why were some family members spared? (Mukherjee' father's sister had been spared)
What 'triggers' had unveiled these predispositions? How much arose from 'nature'
and how much was due to environmental 'nurture'. Also, was Mukherjee a carrier?
What if he could know the precise nature of this genetic flaw? Would he test himself?
Would he inform his daughters?
If technologies were available -- who would control them and their safety?
Part I is about "the missing" science of heredity ....discovering and rediscovering genes.. dated from 1865 to 1935. He talks about theories from Aristotle and Pythagoras....and what each of them had right and what they had wrong.
Pythagoras's theory was that sperm carried all information to make a new human. Aristotle's theory was that heredity was carried in the form of messages to create materials ..( "it was the hand that carried the instructions to mold an embryo"). --
In time, both theories were demolished.
Mukherjee continues to describe how past prominent scientists, physicians, philosophers, historians, sociologists, anthropologist, biologists, linguists, theologist, etc. understood the function of the gene.....and how many of these educators fought furiously over the question of human origin. Charles Darwin, for example, gave rise to the most important synthesis in modern biology and the most powerful understanding of human heredity. --- yet here we are today in 2016-- and Mukherjee is all about the future - medical advances. I'm beginning to see why this book is important.
Embryology, inherited genes, chromosomes, .....so much information to keep taking in. Genetic information could be mixed, matched and swapped.
As a reader...about half way through the book -- it's easy to feel exhausted.
I put the book down...
Made some tea... and listened to to Siddhartha Mukherjee do a TED talk. His talk recharged my energy... I began to see the larger purpose of understanding what past experts believed - to learn about what their work contributed. It's only until really being able to see how we've been treating disease in the past -- can we begin to comprehend the re-organization of treating disease in the future. Mukherjee presented the idea that it's possible the gene will cure disease - rather than a pill.
This is a challenging book to read--yet fascinating -- not as hard to understand as one might think...just hard to stay with all the research. I needed breaks. ( I read other fiction stories at the same time)....
but this book is looks at all sides of genetics: genetic diversity, morality, ...( such as stem cell research -and eugenics)... -and what about predicting the future from genes. ..and alternating the destiny through genetic manipulation.
Medical advances seem to be moving faster than the speed of light. 11 months ago, I had a complete ankle replacement (a somewhat new and complicated surgery). I'm out hiking the hilly trails once again. Given how thankful I am for a working walking foot, I read this book with a hopeful fresh spirit for our future in the area of medical advancements.
Thank You Scribner Publishing, Netgalley, and Siddhartha Mukherjee
January 11, 2018
"We seek constancy in heredity--and find its opposite: variation. Mutants are necessary to maintain the essence of our selves."
- Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Gene
I've owned Mukherjee's other book, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, for years and have consistently found rational reasons to not read it. So, I'm not sure what made me pick up this book first. Perhaps, it was a friend who prompted me. Perhaps, too, was my tendency to come late to authors and read them backwards (rNA?). Perhaps, there is a gene somewhere that always pushes me read an author's first, great novel late. Don't know. What I do know is I was BLOWN away by this book.
It was, first to last page, intensely interesting, it flowed well, and in parts it was damn near poetry. Every day I ended up reading more than I planned for that day. I couldn't put it down. Just like it is sometimes amazing that a fruit fly, a virus, or man can come from an arrangement of just 4 nucleotides in DNA (ATGC), it often amazes me that 26 letters in our alphabet can express the poetry of E.E. Cummings and the prose of a writer like Mukherjee.
There were some experimental chapters that didn't resonate quite as well, but these were minor dings on a nearly perfect work of narrative nonfiction. Overall, the book reminded me a bit of Wright's The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology or Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb. It easy sits among the very best in science writing I've read, covering genetics and the gene from Darwin to CRISPR technology.
As someone who has Type 1 diabetes, RA, Graves disease, and Marfan syndrome, I've always been fascinated by genes the history of genetics (Yes, I'm exist uncomfortably in the shallow end of my family's gene pool). I've actually had my skin punched for genetic tests in the late 80s by Dr. Reed E. Pyeritz at Johns Hopkins. So, discussions in this book about Marfan Syndrome and Johns Hopkins' Moore Clinic hit REALLY close to home. After reading 'The Gene' I'm now a HUGE Mukherjee fan, and have moved 'The Emperor of All Maladies' to my bedside table and will be jumping into that book soon (sometimes, it seems, we can act rationally just by moving cancer closer to us).
- Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Gene
I've owned Mukherjee's other book, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, for years and have consistently found rational reasons to not read it. So, I'm not sure what made me pick up this book first. Perhaps, it was a friend who prompted me. Perhaps, too, was my tendency to come late to authors and read them backwards (rNA?). Perhaps, there is a gene somewhere that always pushes me read an author's first, great novel late. Don't know. What I do know is I was BLOWN away by this book.
It was, first to last page, intensely interesting, it flowed well, and in parts it was damn near poetry. Every day I ended up reading more than I planned for that day. I couldn't put it down. Just like it is sometimes amazing that a fruit fly, a virus, or man can come from an arrangement of just 4 nucleotides in DNA (ATGC), it often amazes me that 26 letters in our alphabet can express the poetry of E.E. Cummings and the prose of a writer like Mukherjee.
There were some experimental chapters that didn't resonate quite as well, but these were minor dings on a nearly perfect work of narrative nonfiction. Overall, the book reminded me a bit of Wright's The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology or Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb. It easy sits among the very best in science writing I've read, covering genetics and the gene from Darwin to CRISPR technology.
As someone who has Type 1 diabetes, RA, Graves disease, and Marfan syndrome, I've always been fascinated by genes the history of genetics (Yes, I'm exist uncomfortably in the shallow end of my family's gene pool). I've actually had my skin punched for genetic tests in the late 80s by Dr. Reed E. Pyeritz at Johns Hopkins. So, discussions in this book about Marfan Syndrome and Johns Hopkins' Moore Clinic hit REALLY close to home. After reading 'The Gene' I'm now a HUGE Mukherjee fan, and have moved 'The Emperor of All Maladies' to my bedside table and will be jumping into that book soon (sometimes, it seems, we can act rationally just by moving cancer closer to us).
October 1, 2019
Not my first review of a masterpiece orchestrated by Siddhartha Mukherjee, as I am guilty to languishing (past a reasonable amount of time) in Pulitzer Prize winner “Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.” Our Mom and Dad give us something. Finding what the something is are drops of light in a “dunkelweld” begging the question do genes determine our identity? What part does Mom and Dad play?
What is a gene anyway? A gene is vibrating message to build a protein, which creates a protein. After the silent birth of form and function, regulation becomes its’ job. In this case, how does this explain his specialty as he takes a view from the heights and adds “family material” in candidly documenting heritable/un-inheritable mental illness.
“...with God shoved aside---what was the driving force behind the origin of the species? What impetus drove the descent of, say, thirteen variants of finches down the fierce rivulets of speciation?” ...Spring 1838...Darwin tore into...the maroon C notebook.”
---Siddhartha Mukherjee, MD
Erudition comes slow and in the doing we are transported to a garden and find a humble monk growing peas on 5 acres in Austria. This monk lives in an Österreich abbey and chooses peas as his subject—as he is prohibited from using vermin. His name is Gregor Mendel. He creates pea hybrids and with mutations he discerns come variety.
The Gene: An Intimate History is providential. From the Asilomar Conference to the birth of Genetech that within is profound. Siddhartha Mukherjee, MD writes as if a fire burning slowly “intus penetus.” Mendels’ forgotten “pea” paper was key to the basic core of heredity and opened a door to W. Arating. Buy, read and share.
What is a gene anyway? A gene is vibrating message to build a protein, which creates a protein. After the silent birth of form and function, regulation becomes its’ job. In this case, how does this explain his specialty as he takes a view from the heights and adds “family material” in candidly documenting heritable/un-inheritable mental illness.
“...with God shoved aside---what was the driving force behind the origin of the species? What impetus drove the descent of, say, thirteen variants of finches down the fierce rivulets of speciation?” ...Spring 1838...Darwin tore into...the maroon C notebook.”
---Siddhartha Mukherjee, MD
Erudition comes slow and in the doing we are transported to a garden and find a humble monk growing peas on 5 acres in Austria. This monk lives in an Österreich abbey and chooses peas as his subject—as he is prohibited from using vermin. His name is Gregor Mendel. He creates pea hybrids and with mutations he discerns come variety.
The Gene: An Intimate History is providential. From the Asilomar Conference to the birth of Genetech that within is profound. Siddhartha Mukherjee, MD writes as if a fire burning slowly “intus penetus.” Mendels’ forgotten “pea” paper was key to the basic core of heredity and opened a door to W. Arating. Buy, read and share.
August 24, 2019
This book is a skillfully crafted combination of science history, character sketches, and personal encounters by the author's extended family with a history of mental illness. The end result maintains the interest of the reader in a subject that could have been a lot less interesting in the hands on another writer.
Most of the book is an account of the history of human advances in the understanding of how heritable characteristics are passed through multiple biological generations. Toward the end of the book the author explores the more ambiguous contributions of nature, nurture and chance in the destiny of biological life. Also some speculation is made on the future possibilities of gene manipulation and repair.
The author's discussion of the complexities of sexual identity was particularly poignant in light of recent political controversies in the USA regarding transexuals. This section of the book should be required reading for legislators who think that the determination of sex at birth is final.
Below are some quotations that caught my eye. I've preceded each with my introductory comment:
I feel sorry for Darwin in his efforts to defend his theory of survival of the fittest as the driving force in the evolution of species. He didn't understand the rules of genetics and thus didn't have the needed information to explain why unusual beneficial genetic traits were not lost through cross breeding. The following quotation describes how close Darwin came to finding the needed information. Instead the significance of Mendel's findings remained unnoticed for four decades.
The following short review is from PageADay Book Lover's Calendar for January 19, 2018:
Siddhartha Mukherjee Won the Pulitzer Prize and legions of devoted readers with his biography of cancer, The Emperor of All Maladies. He brings the same depth of knowledge and personal touch to the story of the human gene. Covering everything from how Aristotle and Darwin understood genetics to the rnodern phenomenon of mapping the genome, The Gene prepares readers to understand the ethical questions surrounding genetics today. Fascinating, accessible, and timely.
THE GENE: AN INTIMATE HISTORY, by Siddhartha Mukherjee (Scribner, 2016)
Most of the book is an account of the history of human advances in the understanding of how heritable characteristics are passed through multiple biological generations. Toward the end of the book the author explores the more ambiguous contributions of nature, nurture and chance in the destiny of biological life. Also some speculation is made on the future possibilities of gene manipulation and repair.
The author's discussion of the complexities of sexual identity was particularly poignant in light of recent political controversies in the USA regarding transexuals. This section of the book should be required reading for legislators who think that the determination of sex at birth is final.
Below are some quotations that caught my eye. I've preceded each with my introductory comment:
I feel sorry for Darwin in his efforts to defend his theory of survival of the fittest as the driving force in the evolution of species. He didn't understand the rules of genetics and thus didn't have the needed information to explain why unusual beneficial genetic traits were not lost through cross breeding. The following quotation describes how close Darwin came to finding the needed information. Instead the significance of Mendel's findings remained unnoticed for four decades.
Had Darwin looked carefully through the books in his voluminous library he might of found a reference to an obscure paper by a little known Botanist from Brno, unassumingly titled "Experiments in Plant Hibernation" and published in a scarcely known journal in 1866. The paper was written in dense German and packed with the kind of mathematical tables that Darwin particularly despised. Even so Dawin came tantalizing close to reading it. In the early 1870s pouring through a book on plant hybrids he made extensive hand written notes on pages 50 , 51, 53, and 54, but mysteriously skipped page 52 where the Brno paper of pea hybrids was discussed in detail. If Darwin had actually read it, particularly as he was writing "Variation" and formulating pangenesis, this study might have provided the final critical insight to understand his own theory of evolution. He would have been fascinated by its implications, moved by the tenderness of it labor, and struck by its strange and explanatory power. Darwin's incisive intellect would have quickly grasped its implications for the understanding of evolution.The following summary of the Nazi and Soviets genetic programs during WWII shows how things can go astray when genetics is made to fit political dogma.
The Nazis believing in absolute genetic immutability—a Jew is a Jew—had resorted to eugenics to change the structure of their population. The Soviets, believing in absolute genetic reprogrammability—anyone is everyone—could eradicate all distinctions and thus achieve a radical collective good.One positive contribution of the Nazis is that they totally discredited eugenics programs.
The mark of Nazis genetics remains like an indelible scar. … This perhaps was the final contribution of Nazism to genetics. It placed the ultimate stamp of shame on eugenics. The horror of Nazi eugenics inspired a cautionary tale prompting a global reexamination of the ambitions that had spurred the effort. Around the world eugenic programs came to a shamefaced halt.The following quotation is addressing the differences between identical twins. I saved it because of the three adjectives modifying "events." I might need those words someday to explain why I'm surprised.
What causes the difference? Forty-three studies performed over two decades have revealed a powerful and consistent answer: unsystematic, idiosyncratic, serendipitous events.Genetic markers have been identified that predict differing abilities to handle stress. The following is an interesting discussion of what could be done with that information.
It is as if resilience itself has a genetic core. Some humans are born resilient but are less responsive to interventions, while others are born sensitive but more likely to respond to changes in their environments. The idea of a resilience gene has entranced social engineers. … "Should we seek to identify the most susceptible children and disproportionately target them when it comes to investing scarce intervention and service dollars? I believe the answer is yes. Some people are … like delicate orchids, … they quickly wither when exposed to distress and depravation but blossom if given a lot of care and support. Others are more like dandelions. They prove resilient to the negative effects of adversity but at the same time do not particularly benefit from positive experiences. By identifying these delicate orchid versus dandelion children by gene profiling … societies might achieve vastly more efficient targeting of scarce resources."For many years geneticists couldn't find a way to perform targeted gene repair. The following is an interesting summary of the author's description of how yogurt engineers found a bacterium capable of defending itself from hostile viruses by a clever method that could also be borrowed by geneticists to target specific places on a gene and make repairs.
Only a handful of such instances of scientific serendipity have occurred in the history of biology. An arcane microbial defense devised by microbes discovered by yogurt engineers and reprogrammed by RNA biologist has created a trap door to transformative technology that geneticists had sought for so longingly for decades. A method to achieve directed efficient and sequence specific modification of the human genome.
The following short review is from PageADay Book Lover's Calendar for January 19, 2018:
Siddhartha Mukherjee Won the Pulitzer Prize and legions of devoted readers with his biography of cancer, The Emperor of All Maladies. He brings the same depth of knowledge and personal touch to the story of the human gene. Covering everything from how Aristotle and Darwin understood genetics to the rnodern phenomenon of mapping the genome, The Gene prepares readers to understand the ethical questions surrounding genetics today. Fascinating, accessible, and timely.
THE GENE: AN INTIMATE HISTORY, by Siddhartha Mukherjee (Scribner, 2016)
June 24, 2020
You don't have to like science to enjoy this book! If you do like science, you'll find it even more informative and entertaining. The book is written for a broader audience who enjoy history, biology, and for those who enjoy debating social, cultural, and ethical dilemmas.
In the book the author takes us in depth though the biological journey of the evolution of our knowledge and struggles with the study of the gene, all coiled around like the DNA strand with world histories most critical events and Mukherjee's personal intimate story.
The stories in the book relating to the competitiveness between laboratories are suspenseful and fun to read. We also find out, to my surprise, the important roll identical twins play for geneticist in providing data and proof that inclination to a certain temperament, urges, illnesses, and other character traits are in most part hereditary, and therefore written in our genes.
We also see that the commonality, or better yet solidarity, that bonds some of the greatest names in biology such as Darwin, Mendel, and others is their failure in the natural and applied science formal education systems of their times. This can be encouraging for those academically struggling.
The book is well-written, and the science and history is well balanced. Mukherjee stays on topic, which is always good.
Don't be discouraged by the 600 pages, it's an enjoyable and easy read. You won't regret it. Highly recommend it!
I've read the Montenegrin-Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian translation Gen: Intimna Istorija autora Sidarte Mukardžija. Laguna 2018 Publishing / 678 pages / 163,515 words. Excellent translation.
In the book the author takes us in depth though the biological journey of the evolution of our knowledge and struggles with the study of the gene, all coiled around like the DNA strand with world histories most critical events and Mukherjee's personal intimate story.
The stories in the book relating to the competitiveness between laboratories are suspenseful and fun to read. We also find out, to my surprise, the important roll identical twins play for geneticist in providing data and proof that inclination to a certain temperament, urges, illnesses, and other character traits are in most part hereditary, and therefore written in our genes.
We also see that the commonality, or better yet solidarity, that bonds some of the greatest names in biology such as Darwin, Mendel, and others is their failure in the natural and applied science formal education systems of their times. This can be encouraging for those academically struggling.
The book is well-written, and the science and history is well balanced. Mukherjee stays on topic, which is always good.
Don't be discouraged by the 600 pages, it's an enjoyable and easy read. You won't regret it. Highly recommend it!
I've read the Montenegrin-Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian translation Gen: Intimna Istorija autora Sidarte Mukardžija. Laguna 2018 Publishing / 678 pages / 163,515 words. Excellent translation.
February 18, 2020
Siddhartha Mukherjee's 2010 The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer is amongst my top nonfiction books of all time.
When he released THE GENE: An Intimate History in 2016, I had plans to get to it, but the 500+ pages on genetics and molecular biology was (just) a little daunting. I mean, I love biology, but I was imagining heredity charts of peas... of course, I just needed to remind myself how fantastic Mukherjee's writing is and trust in that fact.
I chose to listen to the audiobook of this one and it was well-suited for that format. It's largely a chronological tale, starting with Mendel and Darwin, the long shadow of eugenics, DNA modeling, the politics and personalities of the Human Genome Project, epigenetics, CRISPR, and the future of genetics in transhumanism, AI, etc.
Mukherjee inserts meaningful anecdotes on many of the scientists, some humor - but where the book really stands out is how he shares his owngenetic and family history interspersed with the scientific history. His family, like many other Bengali families (he states) were deeply affected by Partition. Incidentally, mental illness, specially bipolar and schizophrenia, further caused this rift in identity. He recalls childhood visits to an institutionalized uncle, and his father's fear of passing this illness to his own children.
If engaging science writing is your thing - it's definitely mine - I highly recommend Mukherjee's work. Both of his books are remarkable.
When he released THE GENE: An Intimate History in 2016, I had plans to get to it, but the 500+ pages on genetics and molecular biology was (just) a little daunting. I mean, I love biology, but I was imagining heredity charts of peas... of course, I just needed to remind myself how fantastic Mukherjee's writing is and trust in that fact.
I chose to listen to the audiobook of this one and it was well-suited for that format. It's largely a chronological tale, starting with Mendel and Darwin, the long shadow of eugenics, DNA modeling, the politics and personalities of the Human Genome Project, epigenetics, CRISPR, and the future of genetics in transhumanism, AI, etc.
Mukherjee inserts meaningful anecdotes on many of the scientists, some humor - but where the book really stands out is how he shares his owngenetic and family history interspersed with the scientific history. His family, like many other Bengali families (he states) were deeply affected by Partition. Incidentally, mental illness, specially bipolar and schizophrenia, further caused this rift in identity. He recalls childhood visits to an institutionalized uncle, and his father's fear of passing this illness to his own children.
If engaging science writing is your thing - it's definitely mine - I highly recommend Mukherjee's work. Both of his books are remarkable.
June 5, 2019
I began this book knowing practically nothing about genes and chromosomes. My ability to follow it from start to finish without any serious problems is amazing! The author is clear, and he captivates a reader’s interest all the way through.
Mukherjee, a cancer physician and researcher, begins with the history of genetics, moves forward to our capabilities today and what lies ahead in the future. He makes the science relevant to modern-day readers. He relates how genetics has impacted on his own family troubled by schizophrenia, and he does this in such a way that science on a general level also becomes personal. He discusses the origin of human species and our dispersion over the globe, and then what this says about the similarities and differences between races. He shows how historical developments, such as eugenics and Hitler's racial policies, revolve around our ability to shape humankind. Each topic that he shifts to is made relevant to people today and ties the reader's interest. Who isn’t drawn in by twin studies? Who isn’t curious to know what very possibly lies ahead in the future? I appreciate that even philosophical aspects are touched upon.
The author neither simplifies the complexities of the science nor does he make the topic incomprehensible for a layman. For me there was a good balance of specific scientific details and clarifying summations. Both how history has shaped our current knowledge and what most probably lies ahead is explored. While I did not understand in detail every step of all the research projects, I could follow the gist of what was being said. There were points where I felt the sentences could possibly have been clearer and where I had to seek further information on the web, but this was not often. Having read the book, I am by no means now an expert, but I feel I have a better comprehension and a solid base to stand on.
The audiobook was very well narrated by Dennis Boutsikaris. He spoke clearly and usually at not too rapid a speed. Keep in mind, I classify myself as a beginner; others reading this may know much more than myself. Such listeners can increase the speed!
I was very hesitant to pick up this book. The reading experience turned out to be much better than I had expected, basically because it kept my interest from start to finish and I learned a lot.
Mukherjee, a cancer physician and researcher, begins with the history of genetics, moves forward to our capabilities today and what lies ahead in the future. He makes the science relevant to modern-day readers. He relates how genetics has impacted on his own family troubled by schizophrenia, and he does this in such a way that science on a general level also becomes personal. He discusses the origin of human species and our dispersion over the globe, and then what this says about the similarities and differences between races. He shows how historical developments, such as eugenics and Hitler's racial policies, revolve around our ability to shape humankind. Each topic that he shifts to is made relevant to people today and ties the reader's interest. Who isn’t drawn in by twin studies? Who isn’t curious to know what very possibly lies ahead in the future? I appreciate that even philosophical aspects are touched upon.
The author neither simplifies the complexities of the science nor does he make the topic incomprehensible for a layman. For me there was a good balance of specific scientific details and clarifying summations. Both how history has shaped our current knowledge and what most probably lies ahead is explored. While I did not understand in detail every step of all the research projects, I could follow the gist of what was being said. There were points where I felt the sentences could possibly have been clearer and where I had to seek further information on the web, but this was not often. Having read the book, I am by no means now an expert, but I feel I have a better comprehension and a solid base to stand on.
The audiobook was very well narrated by Dennis Boutsikaris. He spoke clearly and usually at not too rapid a speed. Keep in mind, I classify myself as a beginner; others reading this may know much more than myself. Such listeners can increase the speed!
I was very hesitant to pick up this book. The reading experience turned out to be much better than I had expected, basically because it kept my interest from start to finish and I learned a lot.
February 7, 2017
Sorry, people. I couldn't finish this book. Billed as a prequel to the brilliant Emperor of Maladies, this was just too confusing and frustrating a book for me. My major difficulty with Mukherjee's approach is that the book is a history of genetics which never properly explains what a gene is. So the reader follows the scientists down blind alleys and back out again while getting dizzy from the increasingly long list of names and biological terms. I ended up trying to sketch out a diagram of how the gene relates to the genome and to a chromosome and to a cell. And then gave up because I was too confused. A chapter outlining the basic biology would have been helpful for non-biologists.
The florid writing regularly tips over into incoherence also annoyed me. For example:
"If haemoglobin's capacity to deliver oxygen to distant sites was disrupted, our bodies would be forced to be small and cold. We would wake up and find ourselves transformed into insects."
No, we wouldn't wake up at all because we would be dead. And what's with the pointless reference to Kafka's "Metamorphosis"? It felt like showing off.
One star for the sheer ambition of trying to write a book about the history of genetics; another star for the incredible detail in the book, and third star out of sentiment, because I loved "Emperor of Maladies" so much. Probably best enjoyed by those with a better basic grasp of genetics than me.
The florid writing regularly tips over into incoherence also annoyed me. For example:
"If haemoglobin's capacity to deliver oxygen to distant sites was disrupted, our bodies would be forced to be small and cold. We would wake up and find ourselves transformed into insects."
No, we wouldn't wake up at all because we would be dead. And what's with the pointless reference to Kafka's "Metamorphosis"? It felt like showing off.
One star for the sheer ambition of trying to write a book about the history of genetics; another star for the incredible detail in the book, and third star out of sentiment, because I loved "Emperor of Maladies" so much. Probably best enjoyed by those with a better basic grasp of genetics than me.
August 9, 2017
كتاب عظيم بكل ما تحمله الكلمة من معنى. من الكُتب النّادرة التي رغم طولها (ما يقرب من 600 صفحة) تبقى مُستمتعًا بقراءتها إلى آخر كلمة.
الكتاب عبارة عن سيرة ذاتية لعلم الوراثة بشكل عام وعلم الوراثة البشرية بشكل خاص، يأخذك بأسلوب قصصي مُشوّق إلى ما قبل البداية، حتى قبل نشوء علم الوراثة على يد مندل، يأخذك إلى نظرية التّطوّر (نظرية داروين)، ثم يُعرج بك إلى أعمال مندل وإرساء أولى مبادئ علم الوراثة، ثم يدور بك في مُختلف أروقة علِم الوراثة وفصولها، واكتشاف الجينات، بحلوها (اكتشاف الحمض النووي، اكتشاف الجينات المسؤولة عن بعض الأمراض الشهيرة وغيرها) ومُرّها (الأعمال المُرتبطة بعلم الوراثة الهادفة إلى "تنقية" الجنس البشري في الحِقبة النازية على سبيل المثال).
أفكار مُختلفة رسبت في رأسي أثناء قراءة الكتاب وبعد الفراغ منه:
- نظرية داروين تبقى أساسية في علم البيولوجيا، لكن الطريقة التي سُرِدت في هذا الكتاب تجعلك تنظر إليها من زاوية مُختلفة، من زاوية تحط من شأنها قليلًا (أو على الأقل تُنزلها منزلتها الحقيقية). نظرية التّطور التي نشرها داورين في كتابه "أصل الأنواع" لم تستند إلى أية دراسة علمية دقيقة، بل كانت مُجرّد ملاحظات، ولولا عِلم الوراثة/الجينات لبقيت نظرية التّطور هيكلًا من دون روح
- كتاب وددت لو توفر لي لقراءته قبل أن أدخل إلى الجامعة، لو توفر لدي حينها لربما قررت دراسة البيولوجيا بدل تخصصي الحالي، ولو توفر لدي في الجامعة لربما قررت مواصلة التخصص في الحوسبة الحيوية*
- وصلنا إلى مرحلة أصبح فيها تعديل الجينات بشكل دائم (تعديل جينات كائن ينقل مورثاته المُعدّلة إلى أولاده) على مرمى حجر. الأمر مُحمّس ومُخيف في آن واحد، سيصبح بإمكان البشرية التّخلص من الكثير من الأمراض المُتوارثة، لكن سيفتح بابًا للتعديل الوراثي على الأفراد قد لا يُمكن إغلاقه، وقد تنتج عنه سلالة "بعد إنسانية"**، سلالة مُحسّنة من البشر، قد تكون سببًا في نهاية الجنس البشري كما نعرفه حاليًا.
- علم الوراثة قريب جدًا من البرمجة. انقر على الأزرار المُناسبة لتحصل على النتيجة المُناسبة.
- ليست كل الأزرار (الجينات) معروفة الوظيفة أو التأثير.
- علم الوراثة لا يزال مُعقّدًا جدًا رغم كل الأشواط التي قطعتها البشرية في هذا المجال، والأشواط القادمة لن نتمكن من قطعها دون الاعتماد بشكل كبير على تحليل البيانات وعلى البرمجة (يعني الأمر لم يعد بأيدي علماء البيولوجيا لوحدهم).
- التطورات التي شهدناها في السنوات الأخيرة (خاصة في مراكز البحوث الصّينية) والتي سنشهدها خلال السنوات القليلة القادمة ستفجّر نقاشات فلسفية وأخلاقية عديدة قد تؤدّي إلى الحد (ولو بشكل رسمي) مما يُمكن دراسته أو التجربة عليه.
- سيُعامل عِلم التعديل الوراثي نفس المُعاملة الحالية للفيزياء النووية. إن كان هذا الأخير هو التخصص الذي فتح الباب أمام القنبلة النووية، فإن علِم الوراثة سيفتح المجال لقنبلة من نفس الحجم، سواءً من حيث التأثير أو من حيث الخطر.
كتاب ممتاز، أنصح الجميع بقراءته بحكم أنه سيكون مقدّمة جيّدة لفهم مجالات أخرى خاصة مجال الترانسومانيسم**
---
*: bioinformatics
**: transhumanism
الكتاب عبارة عن سيرة ذاتية لعلم الوراثة بشكل عام وعلم الوراثة البشرية بشكل خاص، يأخذك بأسلوب قصصي مُشوّق إلى ما قبل البداية، حتى قبل نشوء علم الوراثة على يد مندل، يأخذك إلى نظرية التّطوّر (نظرية داروين)، ثم يُعرج بك إلى أعمال مندل وإرساء أولى مبادئ علم الوراثة، ثم يدور بك في مُختلف أروقة علِم الوراثة وفصولها، واكتشاف الجينات، بحلوها (اكتشاف الحمض النووي، اكتشاف الجينات المسؤولة عن بعض الأمراض الشهيرة وغيرها) ومُرّها (الأعمال المُرتبطة بعلم الوراثة الهادفة إلى "تنقية" الجنس البشري في الحِقبة النازية على سبيل المثال).
أفكار مُختلفة رسبت في رأسي أثناء قراءة الكتاب وبعد الفراغ منه:
- نظرية داروين تبقى أساسية في علم البيولوجيا، لكن الطريقة التي سُرِدت في هذا الكتاب تجعلك تنظر إليها من زاوية مُختلفة، من زاوية تحط من شأنها قليلًا (أو على الأقل تُنزلها منزلتها الحقيقية). نظرية التّطور التي نشرها داورين في كتابه "أصل الأنواع" لم تستند إلى أية دراسة علمية دقيقة، بل كانت مُجرّد ملاحظات، ولولا عِلم الوراثة/الجينات لبقيت نظرية التّطور هيكلًا من دون روح
- كتاب وددت لو توفر لي لقراءته قبل أن أدخل إلى الجامعة، لو توفر لدي حينها لربما قررت دراسة البيولوجيا بدل تخصصي الحالي، ولو توفر لدي في الجامعة لربما قررت مواصلة التخصص في الحوسبة الحيوية*
- وصلنا إلى مرحلة أصبح فيها تعديل الجينات بشكل دائم (تعديل جينات كائن ينقل مورثاته المُعدّلة إلى أولاده) على مرمى حجر. الأمر مُحمّس ومُخيف في آن واحد، سيصبح بإمكان البشرية التّخلص من الكثير من الأمراض المُتوارثة، لكن سيفتح بابًا للتعديل الوراثي على الأفراد قد لا يُمكن إغلاقه، وقد تنتج عنه سلالة "بعد إنسانية"**، سلالة مُحسّنة من البشر، قد تكون سببًا في نهاية الجنس البشري كما نعرفه حاليًا.
- علم الوراثة قريب جدًا من البرمجة. انقر على الأزرار المُناسبة لتحصل على النتيجة المُناسبة.
- ليست كل الأزرار (الجينات) معروفة الوظيفة أو التأثير.
- علم الوراثة لا يزال مُعقّدًا جدًا رغم كل الأشواط التي قطعتها البشرية في هذا المجال، والأشواط القادمة لن نتمكن من قطعها دون الاعتماد بشكل كبير على تحليل البيانات وعلى البرمجة (يعني الأمر لم يعد بأيدي علماء البيولوجيا لوحدهم).
- التطورات التي شهدناها في السنوات الأخيرة (خاصة في مراكز البحوث الصّينية) والتي سنشهدها خلال السنوات القليلة القادمة ستفجّر نقاشات فلسفية وأخلاقية عديدة قد تؤدّي إلى الحد (ولو بشكل رسمي) مما يُمكن دراسته أو التجربة عليه.
- سيُعامل عِلم التعديل الوراثي نفس المُعاملة الحالية للفيزياء النووية. إن كان هذا الأخير هو التخصص الذي فتح الباب أمام القنبلة النووية، فإن علِم الوراثة سيفتح المجال لقنبلة من نفس الحجم، سواءً من حيث التأثير أو من حيث الخطر.
كتاب ممتاز، أنصح الجميع بقراءته بحكم أنه سيكون مقدّمة جيّدة لفهم مجالات أخرى خاصة مجال الترانسومانيسم**
---
*: bioinformatics
**: transhumanism
March 8, 2023
If the reader is a bit curious about how our bodies work, The Gene is a very accessible, highly interesting story of human life from the perspective of genes which build proteins: the chemistry of life. Mukherjee's writing style not only educates about genetic processes but weaves innumerable real life stories about how a genetic errors can create health challenges.
The book should be a must read for high school students or science survey courses where the mission is to provide a science prerequisite for graduation.
If you like Gene, Mukherjee just published Cell, the next step in biology to understanding life. Both books are fabulous. – Tom L.
The book should be a must read for high school students or science survey courses where the mission is to provide a science prerequisite for graduation.
If you like Gene, Mukherjee just published Cell, the next step in biology to understanding life. Both books are fabulous. – Tom L.
October 24, 2016
The dude who wrote Emperor of all Maladies is back with a prequel and it's good!
It starts with some history - a little Darwin and a lot of Mendel, the monk who spent his whole life geeking out over pea plants, and who I remember as being the most boring part of a very boring 9th grade biology class. (Why is high school so awful at making science interesting? It's so interesting!) And some other, lesser-known characters. This is what Mukherjee did in Emperor of Maladies, too: the history of research into a thing. He's good at making it interesting - and he reads a lot of books, so you never know when all of a sudden he's gonna cite Tarzan of the Apes. That's a great bonus for those of us who are book nerds first, science nerds later.
Then it goes into actual DNA stuff with Watson & Crick etc., and here we get into the realm of "There's really no way for me to intuitively grasp any of this," so it's a little tough going for me but I get it a little, I guess.
And in the last third, we talk about all the stuff you're really curious about with genes:
- If we're all getting DNA tests when we're pregnant, are we actually engaging in a vague sort of opt-in eugenics? (Yes!)
- Remember that book The Bell Curve? WTF was that? (It was bullshit!)
- Is there a gay gene or what? (Sortof!)
- What personality traits are genetically influenced? (Studies of identical twins separated at birth find that they tend to agree on sexual preference, religion and politics. That's bananas.)
I raised an eyebrow a little when Mukherjee discussed kids with Downs Syndrome: he ascribes to them a genetic tendency toward sweetness, and my wife (who works with disabled children) adamantly denies that's a thing. She says Downs Syndrome kids are just kids; it's condescending and even damaging to insist they're naturally sweet, and also laughably incorrect if you've spent much time with Downs Syndrome kids. Science agrees with my wife, so now we're reminded that it's dangerous to pick any one person as one's authority on any one thing. Mukherjee is well-intentioned but what else is he wrong about? So, y'know, warning: no one's got all the answers.
Mukherjee has many of them, though, and this is a fun-to-read and informative book.
It starts with some history - a little Darwin and a lot of Mendel, the monk who spent his whole life geeking out over pea plants, and who I remember as being the most boring part of a very boring 9th grade biology class. (Why is high school so awful at making science interesting? It's so interesting!) And some other, lesser-known characters. This is what Mukherjee did in Emperor of Maladies, too: the history of research into a thing. He's good at making it interesting - and he reads a lot of books, so you never know when all of a sudden he's gonna cite Tarzan of the Apes. That's a great bonus for those of us who are book nerds first, science nerds later.
Then it goes into actual DNA stuff with Watson & Crick etc., and here we get into the realm of "There's really no way for me to intuitively grasp any of this," so it's a little tough going for me but I get it a little, I guess.
And in the last third, we talk about all the stuff you're really curious about with genes:
- If we're all getting DNA tests when we're pregnant, are we actually engaging in a vague sort of opt-in eugenics? (Yes!)
- Remember that book The Bell Curve? WTF was that? (It was bullshit!)
- Is there a gay gene or what? (Sortof!)
- What personality traits are genetically influenced? (Studies of identical twins separated at birth find that they tend to agree on sexual preference, religion and politics. That's bananas.)
I raised an eyebrow a little when Mukherjee discussed kids with Downs Syndrome: he ascribes to them a genetic tendency toward sweetness, and my wife (who works with disabled children) adamantly denies that's a thing. She says Downs Syndrome kids are just kids; it's condescending and even damaging to insist they're naturally sweet, and also laughably incorrect if you've spent much time with Downs Syndrome kids. Science agrees with my wife, so now we're reminded that it's dangerous to pick any one person as one's authority on any one thing. Mukherjee is well-intentioned but what else is he wrong about? So, y'know, warning: no one's got all the answers.
Mukherjee has many of them, though, and this is a fun-to-read and informative book.
August 14, 2016
Um livro recomendadíssimo para qualquer um que quer entender mais sobre genética e DNA. Uma mistura de histórias pessoais e histórias de figuras importantes na descoberta do que são os genes e quais os papéis deles que torna o livro interessante para leigos e entendedores. A mesma receita que ele já deu muito certo em O Imperador de Todos Os Males, do mesmo autor, que ganhou o Pulitzer. Para leigos, boa parte das explicações são novas e (acredito) compreensíveis. Ele descreve grande parte dos exemplos que vi durante meu curso de biologia molecular, o livro poderia ser material de curso de biomol sem muitas perdas e sem ser nada cansativo como o material tradicional costuma ser. Para quem já entende, a perspectiva histórica, relatos de quem foram ou como eram as pessoas por trás das descobertas que conhecemos e as discussões sobre ética são excelentes.
Descobri muita coisa nova apesar de gostar e entender da área. Ponto mais forte: o Siddhartha Mukherjee tem formação médica e sua preocupação com os caminhos da eugenia e com as implicações e complica��ões da modificação genética de humanos, de testes de propensão para doença e outros são ótimos pontos para discussões de ética. Ponto mais fraco: talvez pela formação mais médica, alguns pontos históricos ou biológicos ficaram um pouco errados. Ele afirma que Darwin teve acesso aos textos de Mendel, mas até onde sei eram textos sobre cruzamento de plantas, não sobre os princípios da genética. E o único ponto conceitual que realmente me pegou, quando ele fala sobre epigenética, foca muito mais em uma noção já bem deixada de lado, a da regulação através das histonas, e não discute modificações que realmente ocorrem mais como a metilação do DNA. Nesse sentido, o Sobrevivência dos Mais Doentes (Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease) trata melhor, apesar de ser mais antigo.
Descobri muita coisa nova apesar de gostar e entender da área. Ponto mais forte: o Siddhartha Mukherjee tem formação médica e sua preocupação com os caminhos da eugenia e com as implicações e complica��ões da modificação genética de humanos, de testes de propensão para doença e outros são ótimos pontos para discussões de ética. Ponto mais fraco: talvez pela formação mais médica, alguns pontos históricos ou biológicos ficaram um pouco errados. Ele afirma que Darwin teve acesso aos textos de Mendel, mas até onde sei eram textos sobre cruzamento de plantas, não sobre os princípios da genética. E o único ponto conceitual que realmente me pegou, quando ele fala sobre epigenética, foca muito mais em uma noção já bem deixada de lado, a da regulação através das histonas, e não discute modificações que realmente ocorrem mais como a metilação do DNA. Nesse sentido, o Sobrevivência dos Mais Doentes (Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease) trata melhor, apesar de ser mais antigo.
July 25, 2023
"The history of our quest to rip the secrets from our genes had been a quest to rip the secrets from ourselves—to understand the enigma of identity, free will, and destiny."
This book is an ambitious masterpiece that touches on the very essence of what it means to be human. Mukherjee brings clarity to complex scientific concepts without compromising their depth.
He has got an exceptional talent for storytelling and manages to humanize the often abstract world of genetics by interweaving the lives and struggles of scientists and patients who grappled with genetic disorders. In his words, "Genetics was an ancient language, and I hoped that it held a key to understanding life."
The book takes us through the discovery of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick and the profound impact it had on the world of science. Mukherjee's eloquent prose describes this pivotal moment: "It was a discovery that, more than any other, placed human beings within the larger code of life's extraordinary poetry." I literally love the way he has written this book, it inspires me to read more of his books.
One of the standout aspect of this book was where he explore the tumultuous history of eugenics and the dark period when scientific advancements were twisted into dangerous ideologies. Which made me remember about the Nazi eugenics: the state-sponsored, pseudo-scientific ideology and policies implemented by the Nazi regime in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s. The objective of Nazi eugenics was to create a "pure" Aryan race by controlling reproduction and promoting the selective breeding of individuals considered racially superior while eliminating those considered racially or genetically undesirable. What not, the Aktion T4 Program and Forced Sterilizations during the Nazi eugenics was highly inhumane. Making Nazi eugenics one of the dark and deeply disturbing chapter in human history.
Key Highlihghts
● Thorough Historical Context: The author provides an in-depth historical backdrop, tracing the origins of genetic research from Gregor Mendel's pea experiments to the discovery of DNA's structure by Watson and Crick. This context enhances the understanding of the significance and impact of subsequent breakthroughs.
● Ethical Dilemmas Explored: "The Gene" delves into the ethical dilemmas arising from genetic research, from eugenics to gene editing technologies like CRISPR. Mukherjee raises thought-provoking questions about the potential consequences of manipulating our genetic code.
● Human Stories of Genetic Disorders: The author brings a human touch to genetics by narrating stories of individuals and families affected by genetic disorders. These personal accounts evoke empathy and demonstrate the real-life impact of genetic research on medicine and society.
● Comprehensive Scope: Mukherjee covers a wide range of genetic topics, including heredity, gene therapy, cancer genetics, and the role of genetics in mental health.
● Well-Researched and Credible: "The Gene" impresses with its meticulous research and reliance on reputable sources. The author's credentials as an oncologist and researcher lend credibility to the information presented.
● Balanced Perspective: Mukherjee presents a balanced perspective on the promises and perils of genetic advancements, highlighting both the potential for groundbreaking treatments and the potential risks and ethical concerns.
In conclusion, "The Gene: An Intimate History" is a brilliant and thought-provoking exploration of genetics, offering a perfect balance of scientific depth, personal stories, and ethical reflections. A must read! I literally loved reading every single bit of these wonderful book.
This book is an ambitious masterpiece that touches on the very essence of what it means to be human. Mukherjee brings clarity to complex scientific concepts without compromising their depth.
He has got an exceptional talent for storytelling and manages to humanize the often abstract world of genetics by interweaving the lives and struggles of scientists and patients who grappled with genetic disorders. In his words, "Genetics was an ancient language, and I hoped that it held a key to understanding life."
The book takes us through the discovery of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick and the profound impact it had on the world of science. Mukherjee's eloquent prose describes this pivotal moment: "It was a discovery that, more than any other, placed human beings within the larger code of life's extraordinary poetry." I literally love the way he has written this book, it inspires me to read more of his books.
One of the standout aspect of this book was where he explore the tumultuous history of eugenics and the dark period when scientific advancements were twisted into dangerous ideologies. Which made me remember about the Nazi eugenics: the state-sponsored, pseudo-scientific ideology and policies implemented by the Nazi regime in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s. The objective of Nazi eugenics was to create a "pure" Aryan race by controlling reproduction and promoting the selective breeding of individuals considered racially superior while eliminating those considered racially or genetically undesirable. What not, the Aktion T4 Program and Forced Sterilizations during the Nazi eugenics was highly inhumane. Making Nazi eugenics one of the dark and deeply disturbing chapter in human history.
Key Highlihghts
● Thorough Historical Context: The author provides an in-depth historical backdrop, tracing the origins of genetic research from Gregor Mendel's pea experiments to the discovery of DNA's structure by Watson and Crick. This context enhances the understanding of the significance and impact of subsequent breakthroughs.
● Ethical Dilemmas Explored: "The Gene" delves into the ethical dilemmas arising from genetic research, from eugenics to gene editing technologies like CRISPR. Mukherjee raises thought-provoking questions about the potential consequences of manipulating our genetic code.
● Human Stories of Genetic Disorders: The author brings a human touch to genetics by narrating stories of individuals and families affected by genetic disorders. These personal accounts evoke empathy and demonstrate the real-life impact of genetic research on medicine and society.
● Comprehensive Scope: Mukherjee covers a wide range of genetic topics, including heredity, gene therapy, cancer genetics, and the role of genetics in mental health.
● Well-Researched and Credible: "The Gene" impresses with its meticulous research and reliance on reputable sources. The author's credentials as an oncologist and researcher lend credibility to the information presented.
● Balanced Perspective: Mukherjee presents a balanced perspective on the promises and perils of genetic advancements, highlighting both the potential for groundbreaking treatments and the potential risks and ethical concerns.
In conclusion, "The Gene: An Intimate History" is a brilliant and thought-provoking exploration of genetics, offering a perfect balance of scientific depth, personal stories, and ethical reflections. A must read! I literally loved reading every single bit of these wonderful book.
October 5, 2017
This book offers a comprehensive and engaging overview of genetics. It includes the history of the field, anecdotes of its development, a well-paced technical explanation of the high level aspects, and quite a lot of discussion on the associated moral dilemmas that we are faced with as we understand how we can use this technology to change our own species.
Unfortunately, the book does not delve into some of the aspects of modern genetics that I find most interesting, such as gene drive. These are discussed near the very end almost as an afterthought, and are hardly given enough focus. Similarly, epigenetics is only briefly touched on. Lastly, the book is very human-centric and does not discover genetics in a broader context of evolution in animals (e.g. selfish genes), which I find fascinating.
Overall, this will likely become my default recommendation for the reference Genetics book for a general interested reader who is mostly interested in the history of genetics, who enjoys thinking about the ethics of genetics in humans, and who wants to get a good high-level overview of the technical aspects. 4/5
Unfortunately, the book does not delve into some of the aspects of modern genetics that I find most interesting, such as gene drive. These are discussed near the very end almost as an afterthought, and are hardly given enough focus. Similarly, epigenetics is only briefly touched on. Lastly, the book is very human-centric and does not discover genetics in a broader context of evolution in animals (e.g. selfish genes), which I find fascinating.
Overall, this will likely become my default recommendation for the reference Genetics book for a general interested reader who is mostly interested in the history of genetics, who enjoys thinking about the ethics of genetics in humans, and who wants to get a good high-level overview of the technical aspects. 4/5
February 19, 2019
Very interesting and educational, but a bit of an effort to get through.
August 15, 2017
Mukherjee makes science history interesting, accessible and relevant. We learn about genetics and how a steady stream of brilliant and driven scientists uncovered the code that defines us all. Recent discoveries have given us the ability to change that code. Mukherjee presents the moral conundrums implicit in our new knowledge. The moral dilemma has a history too that is as important as that of the discoveries.
Mukherjee begins with Darwin and Mendel. Mendel’s 1856-63 studies of heritable traits in peas would go unnoticed, but Darwin’s 1859 On the Origin of Species drew immediate response. Many considered it blasphemy but in 1883, a year after Darwin’s death, his cousin Francis Galton grasped at a new idea coining the term “eugenics”. He called it “the science of improving stock to give the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing over the less suitable”. Evolutionary theory was barely out of the starting gate and its perversion was racing ahead of it.
Galton died in 1911, the year the American Charles Davenport published Heredity in Relation to Eugenics which became a widely used college text and primary reference for the movement. Many states enacted laws authorizing sterilization to eliminate “defective strains.” Mukherjee dedicates his book to Carrie Buck who in 1924 in Virginia was classified as “feebleminded” by doctors and ordered by a judge to the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and the Feebleminded where her mother had been sent four years earlier. Carrie had been raped and was pregnant. To protect the perpetrator she had been characterized as promiscuous. Virginia wanted to sterilize her and launched a test case that went to the US Supreme Court in 1927. Against the backdrop of widespread fear of immigrants arriving from Southern and Eastern Europe the Court ordered her sterilized. Writing for the 8-1 majority the eminent Oliver Wendell Holmes stated, ”society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind”. While America took the early lead, Germany would bring the eugenics movement to its gruesome conclusion.
In 1900 Mendel’s work was rediscovered and the search for heritable traits was on. From 1905 to 1925 Thomas Morgan and his associates tracked these traits in fruit flies in their Fly Room at Columbia University. They learned much about how genes worked but still did not know what genes were. In 1928 English bacteriologist Frederick Griffith showed that genes could be passed from one bacteria strain to another. In 1944 in New York molecular biologist Oswald Avery used Frederick Griffith’s work to pinpoint DNA as the genetic material. Next came a dramatic race among scientists won by James Watson, Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins. In 1953 they identified DNA’s molecular structure, the famous double-helix. In 1959 Jacques Monad, Arthur Pardee and Francois Jacob published a paper showing how DNA operated through RNA to code proteins that in turn regulated DNA allowing each cell to carry out its own function.
In 1972 Paul Berg created DNA chimera combining genes from viruses and bacteria. This was not without risk. What if a new pathogen for which humans had no defense was unleashed? Soon after Herb Boyer and Stanley Cohen developed the ability to transfer genes from bacteria into mammalian cells and clone them. Frederick Sanger began to sequence them. In 1976 Herb Boyer was approached by venture capitalist Robert Swanson to exploit this new technology. He suggested they call the new company HerBob, but they settled on Genentech. By 1978 Genentech was making insulin, by 1982 human growth hormone and in 1983 an important blood clotting factor that meant hemophiliacs would not have to rely on AIDS infected blood transfusions. It continues to this day to produce a steady stream of important biological therapies.
In 1992 Craig Venter left NIH’s Human Genome Project to set up his own company, The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), dedicated to gene sequencing. In 1995 TIGR was the first to sequence all the genes of a living species, a bacterium. In 1998 Venter left TIGR to form a new gene sequencing company, Celera, derived from the word “accelerate”. Venter intended to beat NIH to be the first to sequence the human genome. That year NIH’s Worm Genome Project completely sequenced the first multicellular animal. Not to be outdone, Celera completely sequenced the fruit fly a year later. In 2000, President Clinton, afraid of the political fallout if the expensive NIH project was beaten by a private startup, engineered a truce. In 2000 Clinton called Venter and Francis Collins who headed NIH’s Human Genome Project to the White House to announce (a little prematurely) that both groups had sequenced the human genome. Both completed their projects and published their results in February 2001.
A new era in genetics was underway. Human lineage could be analyzed, ancestry determined and forensics vastly improved. Completely new avenues to diagnose disease, determine its cause and treat it were opened up. Gene therapy got off to an unfortunate start with the highly publicized death of Paul Gelsinger in 1999. But far better and more powerful techniques were coming. In 2012 Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier published their findings about CRISPER. This bacterial defense system could be used to precisely splice genes. Human embryonic stem (ES) cells and human embryos could now be readily modified. After modification pluripotent ES cells could be converted back to embryos. The opportunities and risks are mindboggling.
I am struck by the timeliness of reading this in August 2017. In April the FDA approved 23andMe selling home testing for health related genes. Do you have a gene that increases your risk of Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s? Now you can find out, but how will you handle the information? In June an FDA advisory committee recommended approval of a gene therapy, CAR-T, which holds much promise in the fight against cancer. If as expected the FDA approves in September, it will be the first gene therapy approved. We can expect subsequent approvals for gene tests and gene therapies to grow rapidly. In July a disease carrying gene was successfully replaced in a human embryo. Designer babies can’t be far in the future. Changes that have long been anticipated are upon us. Is our moral compass up to the responsibility science has placed upon us?
Reading Mukherjee’s book one gets a sense of the furious and ever quickening pace at which genetic technology has advanced. Profound capabilities will be readily available to change what we are. Genes define our mental attributes as well as physical features. What will we make of ourselves? It’s scary when we consider how well humans have managed our world and society. This is a 500 page book and much is left out in this review, particularly about how genes work which is explained well for a general audience. But the distinguishing feature of this book is to put forward the risks and moral hazards in balance with the great opportunity and benefit genetics holds. Everyone concerned about our future should pick this one up.
Mukherjee begins with Darwin and Mendel. Mendel’s 1856-63 studies of heritable traits in peas would go unnoticed, but Darwin’s 1859 On the Origin of Species drew immediate response. Many considered it blasphemy but in 1883, a year after Darwin’s death, his cousin Francis Galton grasped at a new idea coining the term “eugenics”. He called it “the science of improving stock to give the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing over the less suitable”. Evolutionary theory was barely out of the starting gate and its perversion was racing ahead of it.
Galton died in 1911, the year the American Charles Davenport published Heredity in Relation to Eugenics which became a widely used college text and primary reference for the movement. Many states enacted laws authorizing sterilization to eliminate “defective strains.” Mukherjee dedicates his book to Carrie Buck who in 1924 in Virginia was classified as “feebleminded” by doctors and ordered by a judge to the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and the Feebleminded where her mother had been sent four years earlier. Carrie had been raped and was pregnant. To protect the perpetrator she had been characterized as promiscuous. Virginia wanted to sterilize her and launched a test case that went to the US Supreme Court in 1927. Against the backdrop of widespread fear of immigrants arriving from Southern and Eastern Europe the Court ordered her sterilized. Writing for the 8-1 majority the eminent Oliver Wendell Holmes stated, ”society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind”. While America took the early lead, Germany would bring the eugenics movement to its gruesome conclusion.
In 1900 Mendel’s work was rediscovered and the search for heritable traits was on. From 1905 to 1925 Thomas Morgan and his associates tracked these traits in fruit flies in their Fly Room at Columbia University. They learned much about how genes worked but still did not know what genes were. In 1928 English bacteriologist Frederick Griffith showed that genes could be passed from one bacteria strain to another. In 1944 in New York molecular biologist Oswald Avery used Frederick Griffith’s work to pinpoint DNA as the genetic material. Next came a dramatic race among scientists won by James Watson, Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins. In 1953 they identified DNA’s molecular structure, the famous double-helix. In 1959 Jacques Monad, Arthur Pardee and Francois Jacob published a paper showing how DNA operated through RNA to code proteins that in turn regulated DNA allowing each cell to carry out its own function.
In 1972 Paul Berg created DNA chimera combining genes from viruses and bacteria. This was not without risk. What if a new pathogen for which humans had no defense was unleashed? Soon after Herb Boyer and Stanley Cohen developed the ability to transfer genes from bacteria into mammalian cells and clone them. Frederick Sanger began to sequence them. In 1976 Herb Boyer was approached by venture capitalist Robert Swanson to exploit this new technology. He suggested they call the new company HerBob, but they settled on Genentech. By 1978 Genentech was making insulin, by 1982 human growth hormone and in 1983 an important blood clotting factor that meant hemophiliacs would not have to rely on AIDS infected blood transfusions. It continues to this day to produce a steady stream of important biological therapies.
In 1992 Craig Venter left NIH’s Human Genome Project to set up his own company, The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), dedicated to gene sequencing. In 1995 TIGR was the first to sequence all the genes of a living species, a bacterium. In 1998 Venter left TIGR to form a new gene sequencing company, Celera, derived from the word “accelerate”. Venter intended to beat NIH to be the first to sequence the human genome. That year NIH’s Worm Genome Project completely sequenced the first multicellular animal. Not to be outdone, Celera completely sequenced the fruit fly a year later. In 2000, President Clinton, afraid of the political fallout if the expensive NIH project was beaten by a private startup, engineered a truce. In 2000 Clinton called Venter and Francis Collins who headed NIH’s Human Genome Project to the White House to announce (a little prematurely) that both groups had sequenced the human genome. Both completed their projects and published their results in February 2001.
A new era in genetics was underway. Human lineage could be analyzed, ancestry determined and forensics vastly improved. Completely new avenues to diagnose disease, determine its cause and treat it were opened up. Gene therapy got off to an unfortunate start with the highly publicized death of Paul Gelsinger in 1999. But far better and more powerful techniques were coming. In 2012 Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier published their findings about CRISPER. This bacterial defense system could be used to precisely splice genes. Human embryonic stem (ES) cells and human embryos could now be readily modified. After modification pluripotent ES cells could be converted back to embryos. The opportunities and risks are mindboggling.
I am struck by the timeliness of reading this in August 2017. In April the FDA approved 23andMe selling home testing for health related genes. Do you have a gene that increases your risk of Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s? Now you can find out, but how will you handle the information? In June an FDA advisory committee recommended approval of a gene therapy, CAR-T, which holds much promise in the fight against cancer. If as expected the FDA approves in September, it will be the first gene therapy approved. We can expect subsequent approvals for gene tests and gene therapies to grow rapidly. In July a disease carrying gene was successfully replaced in a human embryo. Designer babies can’t be far in the future. Changes that have long been anticipated are upon us. Is our moral compass up to the responsibility science has placed upon us?
Reading Mukherjee’s book one gets a sense of the furious and ever quickening pace at which genetic technology has advanced. Profound capabilities will be readily available to change what we are. Genes define our mental attributes as well as physical features. What will we make of ourselves? It’s scary when we consider how well humans have managed our world and society. This is a 500 page book and much is left out in this review, particularly about how genes work which is explained well for a general audience. But the distinguishing feature of this book is to put forward the risks and moral hazards in balance with the great opportunity and benefit genetics holds. Everyone concerned about our future should pick this one up.
August 21, 2023
Gena a parcurs un drum lung de la un simplu obiect statistic, matematic, la o structură chimică ce poate fi manipulată.
O carte care intră cu siguranță în Top 3 cărți citite anul acesta. Recoman
O carte care intră cu siguranță în Top 3 cărți citite anul acesta. Recoman
December 8, 2019
‘The Gene’ is a very informative book, and a book I believe which everyone should read, as it packs vital information on what we really are. That said, this is a big book, and is very dense in several sections.
Siddhartha Mukherjee traces the history of how we have gained better understanding of our genes since over a century. He starts with his family, many of his relatives on his father’s side suffering from mental illnesses. This is interspersed with some random musings on the impact of the partition of the country, which is largely incomplete, assuming the idea was to link it to mental health. The various experiments done by a variety of people (starting significantly with Mendel) allowing us to understand our genome & genes gradually makes for engrossing reading.
The ‘nature’ vs ‘nurture’ debate expectedly finds coverage and it was interesting to read how it is actually one reinforcing the other rather than a binary or a sum. The ethical considerations and some failed genetic treatment experiments insert a sobering caution, though the progress made has been stupendous.
The narrative could have flowed more easily - enhancing readability (also some random & sketchy non-subject references do not add much), and a possibly wider coverage of genes could have been included (the coverage is very much oriented towards disease causing genes).
This is a book of great value and certainly recommended reading!
My rating: 4.25 / 5.
Siddhartha Mukherjee traces the history of how we have gained better understanding of our genes since over a century. He starts with his family, many of his relatives on his father’s side suffering from mental illnesses. This is interspersed with some random musings on the impact of the partition of the country, which is largely incomplete, assuming the idea was to link it to mental health. The various experiments done by a variety of people (starting significantly with Mendel) allowing us to understand our genome & genes gradually makes for engrossing reading.
The ‘nature’ vs ‘nurture’ debate expectedly finds coverage and it was interesting to read how it is actually one reinforcing the other rather than a binary or a sum. The ethical considerations and some failed genetic treatment experiments insert a sobering caution, though the progress made has been stupendous.
The narrative could have flowed more easily - enhancing readability (also some random & sketchy non-subject references do not add much), and a possibly wider coverage of genes could have been included (the coverage is very much oriented towards disease causing genes).
This is a book of great value and certainly recommended reading!
My rating: 4.25 / 5.
July 22, 2018
4.5/5 But what is ”natural”? I wonder. On one hand: variation, mutation, change, inconstancy, divisibility, flux. And on the other, constancy, permanence, indivisibility, fidelity. Bhed. Abhed. It should hardly surprise us that DNA, the molecule of contradictions, encodes an organism of contradictions. . . . Our genome has negotiated a fragile balance between counterpoised forces, pairing strand with opposing strand, mixing past and future, pitting memory against desire. It is the most human of all things that we possess Its stewardship may be the ultimate test of knowledge and discernment for our species.
Sura-na Bheda Pramaana Sunaavo;
Bheda, Abheda, Pratham kara Jaano.
Show me that you can divide the notes of a song;
But first, show me that you can discern
Between what can be divided
And what cannot.
— An anonymous musical composition inspired by a classical Sanskrit poem
This wondrous journey through the history of genetics and genomics left me surprisingly hopeful and somehow less fearful of the future despite the potential risks of genomic technologies and the enormous changes Mukherjee foresees on the horizon, where “what can be divided and what cannot” is yet unknown. With a gentle, compassionate voice, an open mind, and a sense of humor (he’s unable to resist a groan-worthy literary pun) you would definitely want this man as your personal physician. Looking soberly at the risks and atrocities past, present, and (potential) future, he nevertheless exudes a calm and infectious sense of wonder, acceptance of life’s infinitely creative diversity, and careful hope for benefit to humankind.
Aesthetic appreciation was no small part of my delight, not only in the writing but in the thrill of learning about the gene and the genome, the literal stuff of life. One semester in college I took a course in Ancient Greek Philosophy together with one in Modern Physics (relativity, quantum theory, etc.) delighting in the juxtaposition of the ancient and modern minds, each seeking the secrets of the universe in their own time. This time around, unplanned, I experienced similar juxtapositions of ancient and modern “seekers” by reading in parallel an imaginative analysis of the biblical origin story: The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis by Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg. To my surprise and delight, both authors crammed their books with literary references. Shakespeare, Kafka, and especially Wallace Stevens were quoted in both tomes. And what a treat for my poetic imagination. Genesis. Gene-sis. DNA, the “script” of every living being on earth, begins to look to me like an unfurling scroll. On it are written the instructions for our creation in combinations of four letters: A, C, G and T. They could just as well be four musical notes playing the unique song of each individual being. (Surely some composers have taken inspiration from this?) Or the four letters in the traditional Hebrew Divine Name, creating infinite marvelous variations in its own image and likeness. And today I read in the news that some poet is genetically altering a bacteria to encode his own poetry into its genome. (“Translated” somehow into the four-letter code, I guess.)
I found the storytelling in The Gene: An Intimate History compelling for the most part. With a delicate touch Mukherjee interwove his own family’s troubled medical history with tales of the scientists and their discoveries, from the unlikely father of genetics, the gentle monk Gregor Mendel and his almost unimaginably rigorous analyses and documentation of tens of thousands of meticulously cross-bred pea plants grown in his monastery garden (after his superior had nixed his similar attempts to cross-breed mice in his monastic cell) — to the recent discoveries by Jennifer Doudma and Emmanuelle Charpentier of CRISPR/Cas9 technologies that allow precise gene editing based on what bacteria naturally do to combat viruses. (This gave me a deeper understanding of current news stories.) A medical doctor, Mukherjee focused on the human medicine perspective — he doesn’t say much about genetically modified organisms in other contexts such as agriculture.
As in my recent journey through the history of geological science with John McPhee’s Annals of the Former World series, there was no shortage of scientists behaving badly. For example, Mendel’s unique, groundbreaking work was suppressed (and plagiarized in part) by an envious scientist to whom Mendel had sent his paper — setting back science for 35 years until Mendel’s research was “discovered” after his death and widely published. And then there were the atrocities committed in the name of human improvement (sometimes) — from forced sterilizations of people on the basis of poverty or race in the United States, to the “final solution” of the Nazis and the “medical” experiments of Josef Mengele at Auschwitz. Could things like this be repeated? Maybe. Terrible things are happening now, Mukherjee contends: in his birth country of India and in China, tens of millions of girls are selectively aborted or removed from the human race by infanticide or exposure. As a caution to the world, Siddhartha Mukherjee dedicated this book to Carrie Buck, the first woman to be forcibly sterilized.
Getting further into controversial territory, I was, perhaps naively, surprised and dismayed to learn that the current state of genetic medicine is as primitive as it is, consisting primarily of identifying genetic abnormalities in utero and offering the option of terminating the pregnancy. Ostensibly this is done only by choice, and only for only the most extreme medical conditions that would cause great suffering, but as Mukherjee pointed out, reality is a different story. He also points out the slippery quality of the concept of "great suffering": -- what is it, and who decides? Another major current application of genetic medicine is through in-vitro fertilization, when embryos can be genetically tested and selected or not selected for implantation. Mukherjee discusses some of the ethical concerns with these approaches. What about actually curing genetic diseases? So far, the dangers and technical difficulties of making targeted genetic changes, including fatal screw-ups by overeager experimenters, have held back progress, but Mukherjee believes we are on the cusp of seeing this change, although he cautions that this approach may only apply to conditions that are traceable to a single gene or a simple combination of a few genes -- and we do not know whether changing those genes will also change other, desirable characteristics. We do not know what can be divided and what cannot.
Mukherjee tries to speak evenhandedly and sensitively about the dilemmas of genetic “abnormalities” — or, more neutrally, genetic "variations" — which can sometimes also be gifts. For instance the common co-occurrence of genius and mental illness (as occurred in his family) can be traced to genetics and isn’t just the stuff of legends and movies. And most of the time, genes only indicate a potential that may or may not be realized. One special case that is more genetically clear-cut than most, but ethically less so, is Down syndrome. Even this seemingly straightforward chromosomal variation can result in a wide range of outcomes for people born with this condition -- some people born with Down syndrome can have relatively healthy, relatively independent lives. Mukherjee also points out (at least twice) the sweet, almost angelic disposition of people with Down’s syndrome, implying how much would be lost if they were all eliminated from the human race as "undesirable". (Having worked and lived for two summers with Down syndrome youth, I agree.) On the other hand, Mukherjee is sensitive to women who may have reason to make another choice. He mentions the case of a woman who, after having a child with Down syndrome who suffered greatly from medical conditions, underwent many painful surgeries, and died young, decides to abort a subsequent Down fetus. (I couldn’t help but contrast Mukherjee’s sensitive perspective to Richard Dawkins who has said that a woman would be immoral not to abort a fetus with Down syndrome. I find that horrible, and so much for women’s autonomy, some men can’t resist telling us what to do even without a religion to blame it on.)
In short, I recommend this book to those interested in a human-focused book on the science of genetics and genomics in pretty close to its current state. I will definitely read Mukherjee’s cancer book now, and I’m also looking forward to reading a new (2018) book with an epigenetic focus: She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions and Potentialities of Heredity by Carl Zimmer (also new to me). Since finishing this book I've also listened to several extended interviews of Dr. Mukherjee on YouTube about this book and his early book on cancer; my overall impression is of a humble, thoughtful man who cares deeply for us humans.
Sura-na Bheda Pramaana Sunaavo;
Bheda, Abheda, Pratham kara Jaano.
Show me that you can divide the notes of a song;
But first, show me that you can discern
Between what can be divided
And what cannot.
— An anonymous musical composition inspired by a classical Sanskrit poem
This wondrous journey through the history of genetics and genomics left me surprisingly hopeful and somehow less fearful of the future despite the potential risks of genomic technologies and the enormous changes Mukherjee foresees on the horizon, where “what can be divided and what cannot” is yet unknown. With a gentle, compassionate voice, an open mind, and a sense of humor (he’s unable to resist a groan-worthy literary pun) you would definitely want this man as your personal physician. Looking soberly at the risks and atrocities past, present, and (potential) future, he nevertheless exudes a calm and infectious sense of wonder, acceptance of life’s infinitely creative diversity, and careful hope for benefit to humankind.
Aesthetic appreciation was no small part of my delight, not only in the writing but in the thrill of learning about the gene and the genome, the literal stuff of life. One semester in college I took a course in Ancient Greek Philosophy together with one in Modern Physics (relativity, quantum theory, etc.) delighting in the juxtaposition of the ancient and modern minds, each seeking the secrets of the universe in their own time. This time around, unplanned, I experienced similar juxtapositions of ancient and modern “seekers” by reading in parallel an imaginative analysis of the biblical origin story: The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis by Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg. To my surprise and delight, both authors crammed their books with literary references. Shakespeare, Kafka, and especially Wallace Stevens were quoted in both tomes. And what a treat for my poetic imagination. Genesis. Gene-sis. DNA, the “script” of every living being on earth, begins to look to me like an unfurling scroll. On it are written the instructions for our creation in combinations of four letters: A, C, G and T. They could just as well be four musical notes playing the unique song of each individual being. (Surely some composers have taken inspiration from this?) Or the four letters in the traditional Hebrew Divine Name, creating infinite marvelous variations in its own image and likeness. And today I read in the news that some poet is genetically altering a bacteria to encode his own poetry into its genome. (“Translated” somehow into the four-letter code, I guess.)
I found the storytelling in The Gene: An Intimate History compelling for the most part. With a delicate touch Mukherjee interwove his own family’s troubled medical history with tales of the scientists and their discoveries, from the unlikely father of genetics, the gentle monk Gregor Mendel and his almost unimaginably rigorous analyses and documentation of tens of thousands of meticulously cross-bred pea plants grown in his monastery garden (after his superior had nixed his similar attempts to cross-breed mice in his monastic cell) — to the recent discoveries by Jennifer Doudma and Emmanuelle Charpentier of CRISPR/Cas9 technologies that allow precise gene editing based on what bacteria naturally do to combat viruses. (This gave me a deeper understanding of current news stories.) A medical doctor, Mukherjee focused on the human medicine perspective — he doesn’t say much about genetically modified organisms in other contexts such as agriculture.
As in my recent journey through the history of geological science with John McPhee’s Annals of the Former World series, there was no shortage of scientists behaving badly. For example, Mendel’s unique, groundbreaking work was suppressed (and plagiarized in part) by an envious scientist to whom Mendel had sent his paper — setting back science for 35 years until Mendel’s research was “discovered” after his death and widely published. And then there were the atrocities committed in the name of human improvement (sometimes) — from forced sterilizations of people on the basis of poverty or race in the United States, to the “final solution” of the Nazis and the “medical” experiments of Josef Mengele at Auschwitz. Could things like this be repeated? Maybe. Terrible things are happening now, Mukherjee contends: in his birth country of India and in China, tens of millions of girls are selectively aborted or removed from the human race by infanticide or exposure. As a caution to the world, Siddhartha Mukherjee dedicated this book to Carrie Buck, the first woman to be forcibly sterilized.
Getting further into controversial territory, I was, perhaps naively, surprised and dismayed to learn that the current state of genetic medicine is as primitive as it is, consisting primarily of identifying genetic abnormalities in utero and offering the option of terminating the pregnancy. Ostensibly this is done only by choice, and only for only the most extreme medical conditions that would cause great suffering, but as Mukherjee pointed out, reality is a different story. He also points out the slippery quality of the concept of "great suffering": -- what is it, and who decides? Another major current application of genetic medicine is through in-vitro fertilization, when embryos can be genetically tested and selected or not selected for implantation. Mukherjee discusses some of the ethical concerns with these approaches. What about actually curing genetic diseases? So far, the dangers and technical difficulties of making targeted genetic changes, including fatal screw-ups by overeager experimenters, have held back progress, but Mukherjee believes we are on the cusp of seeing this change, although he cautions that this approach may only apply to conditions that are traceable to a single gene or a simple combination of a few genes -- and we do not know whether changing those genes will also change other, desirable characteristics. We do not know what can be divided and what cannot.
Mukherjee tries to speak evenhandedly and sensitively about the dilemmas of genetic “abnormalities” — or, more neutrally, genetic "variations" — which can sometimes also be gifts. For instance the common co-occurrence of genius and mental illness (as occurred in his family) can be traced to genetics and isn’t just the stuff of legends and movies. And most of the time, genes only indicate a potential that may or may not be realized. One special case that is more genetically clear-cut than most, but ethically less so, is Down syndrome. Even this seemingly straightforward chromosomal variation can result in a wide range of outcomes for people born with this condition -- some people born with Down syndrome can have relatively healthy, relatively independent lives. Mukherjee also points out (at least twice) the sweet, almost angelic disposition of people with Down’s syndrome, implying how much would be lost if they were all eliminated from the human race as "undesirable". (Having worked and lived for two summers with Down syndrome youth, I agree.) On the other hand, Mukherjee is sensitive to women who may have reason to make another choice. He mentions the case of a woman who, after having a child with Down syndrome who suffered greatly from medical conditions, underwent many painful surgeries, and died young, decides to abort a subsequent Down fetus. (I couldn’t help but contrast Mukherjee’s sensitive perspective to Richard Dawkins who has said that a woman would be immoral not to abort a fetus with Down syndrome. I find that horrible, and so much for women’s autonomy, some men can’t resist telling us what to do even without a religion to blame it on.)
In short, I recommend this book to those interested in a human-focused book on the science of genetics and genomics in pretty close to its current state. I will definitely read Mukherjee’s cancer book now, and I’m also looking forward to reading a new (2018) book with an epigenetic focus: She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions and Potentialities of Heredity by Carl Zimmer (also new to me). Since finishing this book I've also listened to several extended interviews of Dr. Mukherjee on YouTube about this book and his early book on cancer; my overall impression is of a humble, thoughtful man who cares deeply for us humans.
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