Author: Desmond S. T. Nicholl
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521004718
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 308
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Book Description
The author presents a basic introduction to the world of genetic engineering. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
Author: David Reich
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192554387
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 400
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Book Description
The past few years have seen a revolution in our ability to map whole genome DNA from ancient humans. With the ancient DNA revolution, combined with rapid genome mapping of present human populations, has come remarkable insights into our past. This important new data has clarified and added to our knowledge from archaeology and anthropology, helped resolve long-existing controversies, challenged long-held views, and thrown up some remarkable surprises. The emerging picture is one of many waves of ancient human migrations, so that all populations existing today are mixes of ancient ones, as well as in many cases carrying a genetic component from Neanderthals, and, in some populations, Denisovans. David Reich, whose team has been at the forefront of these discoveries, explains what the genetics is telling us about ourselves and our complex and often surprising ancestry. Gone are old ideas of any kind of racial 'purity', or even deep and ancient divides between peoples. Instead, we are finding a rich variety of mixtures. Reich describes the cutting-edge findings from the past few years, and also considers the sensitivities involved in tracing ancestry, with science sometimes jostling with politics and tradition. He brings an important wider message: that we should celebrate our rich diversity, and recognize that every one of us is the result of a long history of migration and intermixing of ancient peoples, which we carry as ghosts in our DNA. What will we discover next?
Author: Melinda C. Mills
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262357445
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 433
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Book Description
A comprehensive introduction to modern applied statistical genetic data analysis, accessible to those without a background in molecular biology or genetics. Human genetic research is now relevant beyond biology, epidemiology, and the medical sciences, with applications in such fields as psychology, psychiatry, statistics, demography, sociology, and economics. With advances in computing power, the availability of data, and new techniques, it is now possible to integrate large-scale molecular genetic information into research across a broad range of topics. This book offers the first comprehensive introduction to modern applied statistical genetic data analysis that covers theory, data preparation, and analysis of molecular genetic data, with hands-on computer exercises. It is accessible to students and researchers in any empirically oriented medical, biological, or social science discipline; a background in molecular biology or genetics is not required. The book first provides foundations for statistical genetic data analysis, including a survey of fundamental concepts, primers on statistics and human evolution, and an introduction to polygenic scores. It then covers the practicalities of working with genetic data, discussing such topics as analytical challenges and data management. Finally, the book presents applications and advanced topics, including polygenic score and gene-environment interaction applications, Mendelian Randomization and instrumental variables, and ethical issues. The software and data used in the book are freely available and can be found on the book's website.
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309437385
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 607
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Book Description
Genetically engineered (GE) crops were first introduced commercially in the 1990s. After two decades of production, some groups and individuals remain critical of the technology based on their concerns about possible adverse effects on human health, the environment, and ethical considerations. At the same time, others are concerned that the technology is not reaching its potential to improve human health and the environment because of stringent regulations and reduced public funding to develop products offering more benefits to society. While the debate about these and other questions related to the genetic engineering techniques of the first 20 years goes on, emerging genetic-engineering technologies are adding new complexities to the conversation. Genetically Engineered Crops builds on previous related Academies reports published between 1987 and 2010 by undertaking a retrospective examination of the purported positive and adverse effects of GE crops and to anticipate what emerging genetic-engineering technologies hold for the future. This report indicates where there are uncertainties about the economic, agronomic, health, safety, or other impacts of GE crops and food, and makes recommendations to fill gaps in safety assessments, increase regulatory clarity, and improve innovations in and access to GE technology.
Author: F. A. E. Crew
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 1483282651
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 229
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Book Description
The Foundations of Genetics describes the historical development of genetics with emphasis on the contributions to advancing genetical knowledge and the various applications of genetics. The book reviews the work of Gregor Mendel, his Law of Segregation, and of Ernst Haeckel who suggested that the nucleus is that part of the cell that is responsible for heredity. The text also describes the studies of W. Johannsen on "pure lines," and his introduction of the terms gene, genotype, and phenotype. The book explains the theory of the gene and the notion that hereditary particles are borne by the chromosomes (Sutton-Boveri hypothesis). Of the constituent parts of the nucleus only the chromatin material divides at mitosis and segregates during maturation. Following studies confirm that the chromatin material, present in the form of chromosomes with a constant and characteristic number and appearance for each species, is indeed the hereditary material. The book describes how Muller in 1927, showed that high precision energy radiation is the external cause to mutation in the gene itself if one allele can mutate without affecting its partner. The superstructure of genetics built upon the foundations of Mendelism has many applications including cytogenetics, polyploidy, human genetics, eugenics, plant breeding, radiation genetics, and the evolution theory. The book can be useful to academicians and investigators in the fields of genetics such as biochemical, biometrical, microbial, and pharmacogenetics. Students in agriculture, anthropology, botany, medicine, sociology, veterinary medicine, and zoology should add this text to their list of primary reading materials.
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309437873
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 231
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Book Description
Research on gene drive systems is rapidly advancing. Many proposed applications of gene drive research aim to solve environmental and public health challenges, including the reduction of poverty and the burden of vector-borne diseases, such as malaria and dengue, which disproportionately impact low and middle income countries. However, due to their intrinsic qualities of rapid spread and irreversibility, gene drive systems raise many questions with respect to their safety relative to public and environmental health. Because gene drive systems are designed to alter the environments we share in ways that will be hard to anticipate and impossible to completely roll back, questions about the ethics surrounding use of this research are complex and will require very careful exploration. Gene Drives on the Horizon outlines the state of knowledge relative to the science, ethics, public engagement, and risk assessment as they pertain to research directions of gene drive systems and governance of the research process. This report offers principles for responsible practices of gene drive research and related applications for use by investigators, their institutions, the research funders, and regulators.
Author: Nessa Carey
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231530714
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353
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Book Description
Epigenetics can potentially revolutionize our understanding of the structure and behavior of biological life on Earth. It explains why mapping an organism's genetic code is not enough to determine how it develops or acts and shows how nurture combines with nature to engineer biological diversity. Surveying the twenty-year history of the field while also highlighting its latest findings and innovations, this volume provides a readily understandable introduction to the foundations of epigenetics. Nessa Carey, a leading epigenetics researcher, connects the field's arguments to such diverse phenomena as how ants and queen bees control their colonies; why tortoiseshell cats are always female; why some plants need cold weather before they can flower; and how our bodies age and develop disease. Reaching beyond biology, epigenetics now informs work on drug addiction, the long-term effects of famine, and the physical and psychological consequences of childhood trauma. Carey concludes with a discussion of the future directions for this research and its ability to improve human health and well-being.
Author: Scot McKnight
Publisher: Brazos Press
ISBN: 1493406744
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 343
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Book Description
Genomic science indicates that humans descend not from an individual pair but from a large population. What does this mean for the basic claim of many Christians: that humans descend from Adam and Eve? Leading evangelical geneticist Dennis Venema and popular New Testament scholar Scot McKnight combine their expertise to offer informed guidance and answers to questions pertaining to evolution, genomic science, and the historical Adam. Some of the questions they explore include: - Is there credible evidence for evolution? - Do we descend from a population or are we the offspring of Adam and Eve? - Does taking the Bible seriously mean rejecting recent genomic science? - How do Genesis's creation stories reflect their ancient Near Eastern context, and how did Judaism understand the Adam and Eve of Genesis? - Doesn't Paul's use of Adam in the New Testament prove that Adam was a historical individual? The authors address up-to-date genomics data with expert commentary from both genetic and theological perspectives, showing that genome research and Scripture are not irreconcilable. Foreword by Tremper Longman III and afterword by Daniel Harrell.
Author: Alfred Henry Sturtevant
Publisher: CSHL Press
ISBN: 9780879696078
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 190
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Book Description
In the small “Fly Room†at Columbia University, T.H. Morgan and his students, A.H. Sturtevant, C.B. Bridges, and H.J. Muller, carried out the work that laid the foundations of modern, chromosomal genetics. The excitement of those times, when the whole field of genetics was being created, is captured in this book, written in 1965 by one of those present at the beginning. His account is one of the few authoritative, analytic works on the early history of genetics. This attractive reprint is accompanied by a website, http://www.esp.org/books/sturt/history/ offering full-text versions of the key papers discussed in the book, including the world's first genetic map.
Author: Siddhartha Mukherjee
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476733538
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 624
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Book Description
The #1 NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller The basis for the PBS Ken Burns Documentary The Gene: An Intimate History Now includes an excerpt from Siddhartha Mukherjee’s new book Song of the Cell! From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies—a fascinating history of the gene and “a magisterial account of how human minds have laboriously, ingeniously picked apart what makes us tick” (Elle). “Sid Mukherjee has the uncanny ability to bring together science, history, and the future in a way that is understandable and riveting, guiding us through both time and the mystery of life itself.” —Ken Burns “Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee dazzled readers with his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Emperor of All Maladies in 2010. That achievement was evidently just a warm-up for his virtuoso performance in The Gene: An Intimate History, in which he braids science, history, and memoir into an epic with all the range and biblical thunder of Paradise Lost” (The New York Times). In this biography Mukherjee brings to life the quest to understand human heredity and its surprising influence on our lives, personalities, identities, fates, and choices. “Mukherjee expresses abstract intellectual ideas through emotional stories…[and] swaddles his medical rigor with rhapsodic tenderness, surprising vulnerability, and occasional flashes of pure poetry” (The Washington Post). Throughout, the story of Mukherjee’s own family—with its tragic and bewildering history of mental illness—reminds us of the questions that hang over our ability to translate the science of genetics from the laboratory to the real world. In riveting and dramatic prose, he describes the centuries of research and experimentation—from Aristotle and Pythagoras to Mendel and Darwin, from Boveri and Morgan to Crick, Watson and Franklin, all the way through the revolutionary twenty-first century innovators who mapped the human genome. “A fascinating and often sobering history of how humans came to understand the roles of genes in making us who we are—and what our manipulation of those genes might mean for our future” (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel), The Gene is the revelatory and magisterial history of a scientific idea coming to life, the most crucial science of our time, intimately explained by a master. “The Gene is a book we all should read” (USA TODAY).
