Genetic twists of fate / / Stanley Fields and Mark Johnston.

• Superior document: The MIT Press
• Author: Fields, Stanley.
• TeilnehmendeR: Johnston, Mark, 1951-
• Year of Publication: 2010
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: The MIT Press
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (235 p.)
• Notes: Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

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

Table of Contents

Pt. 1. Your personal genome : Googling your DNA. What do genes do? -- Genes are the instructions for life : AIDS and the uncommon man ; Proteins are the workhorses of the cell : misdiagnosis of a metabolic malady -- All from a single cell : how a fertilized egg develops into a baby -- When the gene is the cure : immunodeficiency and gene therapy -- When cells are the cure : diabetes and stem cells -- Pt. 2. The inheritance of the gene. When one gene is enough : the enzyme missing in an inherited disease -- When one gene is too much : at risk for Huntington's Disease -- Genes to remember : the growing burden of Alzheimer's Disease -- Blaming our genes : the heritability of behavior -- Pt. 3. Finding the gene. Mistakes happen : the mutations of cancer -- Reshuffling the genetic deck : a cancer gene in the neighborhood -- A family affair : mapping a gene for ALS -- Signposts for common disease : focusing on macular degeneration -- The President who swallowed rat poison : preventing the next heart attack -- Pt. 4. The gene in evolution. The law of evolution : Darwin, Wallace, and the survival of the fittest -- Around the world in fifty thousand years : the genetics of race -- Your personal DNA code : summing up.