An authoritative account of a critical area of medical research and the promises it holds.
Cell research has the potential to unlock a new generation of treatments, according to a leader in the field.
Medical research is a series of small steps, each one building on the lessons learned before. This is the story that gastroenterologist Stanger, who combines cutting-edge research with clinical work, tells in this book. Embryos have long been recognized as the initial phase of life, but they raise the intriguing questions of how cells multiply, how they differentiate and coalesce to form organs, and how they eventually die. Through a series of biographical sketches, Stanger traces the gradual development of the knowledge base, including the unlocking of the connection between cells and genes. Ingenious experiments with frogs and flies provided an understanding of hereditary characteristics and mutations. Many of the breakthroughs came from strange places, such as studies of radiation poisoning, the structure of viruses, and the way that tumors grow. The discovery of DNA was a crucial step, and it paved the way for genetic engineering. Stanger has a particular interest in regenerative medicine, an emerging field that owes much to an understanding of embryo development. It uses cell-based procedures to repair damaged organs, potentially even spinal cords. There are also applications in the treatment of cancer and cognitive decline. The author also highlights important research into the development and transplantation of organs grown artificially. Stanger emphasizes that there is a long way to go, but the potential is huge. Due to the subject matter, parts of the book are complex and require a close reading, but there is a useful glossary of terms, and Stanger does his best to avoid jargon. Ultimately, the author delivers an informative package of how this field of medicine has developed and where it might be going.
An authoritative account of a critical area of medical research and the promises it holds.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2023
ISBN: 9781324005421
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
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