Genes, Germs and Medicine explores the development of modern biomedical science in the United States through the life of one of the Twentieth Century's most influential scientists.Joshua Lederberg was a scientific renaissance man. He and his collaborators founded the field of bacterial genetics, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize at the age of 33 (the second youngest in history). He helped to lay the foundations for genetic engineering, made fundamental revisions to immunological and evolutionary theory, and developed medical genetics. He initiated the search for extraterrestrial microbial life, developed artificial intelligence, and was a visionary of the Digital Age. Lederberg coined some of the central terms of modern biology: plasmid, transduction, exobiology, euphenics and microbiome.A complex humanist who spoke out for social justice, Lederberg confronted racism, and denied a gene-centered view of humans. Pondering our social evolution outside of nature, he forewarned of the complex ethical issues arising from bioengineering. He sounded the alarm about coming pandemics at a time when few would listen, and warned of the peril of biowarfare and strove to prevent it. Lederberg was a man with a deep sense of social and intellectual responsibility, a trusted advisor to eight presidential administrations.
Meanwhile, in Germany, a scientist named Robert Koch was working to identify the cause of a strange condition called consumption. Consumption, which we now call tuberculosis, is a contagious and progressive lung disease that causes pale ...
Filled with fascinating insights--including how experiences that haunted our grandparents echo in our DNA, why the bacteria in our guts mess with our minds, and whether there really is a "murder gene"--this revolutionary book explains the ...
Kraut (history, American U.) found that new immigrant populations--made up of impoverished laborers living in urban America's least sanitary conditions--have been victims of illness rather than its progenitors, yet the medical establishment ...
In Germs, Genes and Civilization, Dr. David Clark tells the story of the microbe-driven epidemics that have repeatedly molded our human destinies.
Of germs, genes and genocide: slavery, capitalism, imperialism, health and medicine
From world-renowned leaders in science and science journalism, including David Clark, Anne Maczulak, and Greg Gibson
Like Novick's staph-jamming AIPs, Gilmore's drug doesn't kill its target. It just hobbles one of its most dangerous weapons. That's particularly important given the bounty of harmless and potentially protective strains and species of ...
Prologue: Families -- "The missing science of heredity" 1865-1935 -- "In the sum of the parts, there are only the parts" 1930-1970 -- "The dreams of geneticists" 1970-2001 -- "The proper study of mankind is man" 1970-2005 -- Through the ...
This witty, colloquial book is popular science at its best, describing in everyday language how genetics, epigenetics, microbiology, and psychology work together to influence our personality and actions.
In Genetic Medicine: A Logic of Disease, Barton Childs demonstrates that knowledge of the ways both genes and environment contribute to disease provides a rational basis for medical thinking....