An excellent update on genomic medicine, which is finally bringing home the bacon.
An enthusiastic report on the state of the field of genomics.
Observers predicted miracles following the discovery of the genetic code in the 1950s, genetic engineering in the 1980s, and sequencing the human genome in 2003. Now, we are beginning to reap the rewards of that work. Cardiologist Ashley, professor of medicine and genetics at Stanford, makes a convincing case that the floodgates are opening. From several billion dollars in 2003, the cost of sequencing an individual genome has dropped to under $1,000. “Today, a physician can order a genome almost as easily as ordering a cholesterol test,” writes the author. “Health insurance companies increasingly list it as a covered benefit, acknowledging that transformative insights can emerge.” Although essential, knowing the makeup of every gene is only a first step. After explaining how that was achieved, Ashley describes how he and fellow researchers are learning what each gene accomplishes (a process well along), what happens when they malfunction (some progress), and how to fix them, which is more difficult and frustrating. But there is light at the end of the tunnel, as the author offers numerous intriguing descriptions of brilliant scientists in this field and their work on individual genomes. One major advance was the 2008 establishment of the NIH Undiagnosed Diseases Program, which devotes government money to the research of previously unknown genetic abnormalities. Ashley goes on to describe several bizarre cases, which, after a great deal of investigation, turned out to be the result of a defective gene. These make fascinating reading, but readers may suspect that this is another expert account of a spectacular technological development that raises the possibility of curing disease…but not quite yet. The final chapters are particularly interesting, as the author describes efforts to repair defective genes that have, in the past few years, permanently improved the lives of victims of a few rare diseases, even common ones such as hemophilia.
An excellent update on genomic medicine, which is finally bringing home the bacon.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-23499-5
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
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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