| Blood Matters: From Brca1 to Designer Babies, How the World and I Found Ourselves in the Future of the Gene Contributor(s): Gessen, Masha (Author) |
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ISBN: 0156033313 ISBN-13: 9780156033312 Publisher: Mariner Books OUR PRICE: $19.94 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: November 2009 Annotation: In 2004 genetic testing revealed that Masha Gessen had a mutation that predisposed her to ovarian and breast cancer. The discovery initiated Gessen into a club of sorts: the small (but exponentially expanding) group of people in possession of a new and different way of knowing themselves through what is inscribed in the strands of their DNA. As she wrestled with a wrenching personal decision--what to do with such knowledge--Gessen explored the landscape of this brave new world, speaking with others like her, and with experts including medical researchers, historians, and religious thinkers. "Blood Matters "is a much-needed field guide to this unfamiliar and unsettling territory. It explores the way genetic information is shaping the decisions we make, not only about our physical and emotional health but about who we marry, the children we bear, even the personality traits we long to have. And it helps us come to terms with the radical transformation genetic information is engineering in our most basic sense of who we are and what we might become. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Medical | Genetics - Science | Life Sciences - Genetics & Genomics - Medical | Diseases |
| Dewey: 616.042 |
| Physical Information: 0.82" H x 5.26" W x 8.04" (0.67 lbs) 336 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Masha Gessen discovered through genetic testing that she had the dreaded BRCA1 genetic mutation--the same mutation made famous recently by Angelina Jolie, which predisposes women to ovarian and breast cancer. As Gessen wrestled with a wrenching personal decision--what to do with such knowledge--she explored the landscape of a brave new world, speaking with others like her and with experts including medical researchers, historians, and religious thinkers.Blood Matters is a much-needed field guide to this unfamiliar and unsettling territory. It explores the way genetic information is shaping the decisions we make, not only about our physical and emotional health but about whom we marry, the children we bear, even the personality traits we long to have. And it helps us come to terms with the radical transformation that genetic information is engineering in our most basic sense of who we are and what we might become. |
Contributor Bio(s): Gessen, Masha: - MASHA GESSEN is a journalist who has written for Slate, Seed, the New Republic, the New York Times, and other publications, and is the author of numerous books, including The Future is History, which has been nominated for the National Book Award. |