The Gene: An Intimate History

Présentation

What is a gene, and what happens when we learn to read — and rewrite — it? In The Gene, physician and writer Siddhartha Mukherjee traces the idea of heredity from Darwin and Mendel through the discovery of DNA to today's gene-editing revolution. He weaves the science together with the history of how it has been used and abused, and with his own family's experience of inherited mental illness. The result is at once a clear explanation of modern genetics and a moral reflection on the choices it forces upon us. Ambitious, humane and beautifully written, it makes one of the defining sciences of our century genuinely gripping.