genetics - Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing & the Future of the Human Race

By Scott J. Pearson | December 14, 2022December 14, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

In our generation, codes comprise some of the most interesting subjects of study. We code computers to do work for us; we also are beginning to decode the genetic code to propel life forward. The discovery of CRISPR promises to allow us to edit the human genome, and Professor Doudna sits among this innovation’s prime discoverers. Along with another female scientist Professor Charpentier, she won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2020. This biography, written…

Healthcare History Science

The Gene: An Intimate History

By Scott J. Pearson | July 4, 2022July 4, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

Genetics is a field of biomedical research that is both in motion and influential over our daily lives. It promises to help millions afflicted with horrific disease, yet it could be poised to change (or unravel?) human life as we seek to write our own destinies in DNA. Real action in this field has only occurred in the last 200 years, starting with Gregor Mendel and accelerating in the early twentieth century. Mukherjee, an oncologist…

Politics Science Society

Genomic Politics: How the Revolution in Genomic Science is Shaping American Society

By Scott J. Pearson | July 10, 2021July 10, 2021 by Scott J. Pearson

Hochschild, an academic political scientist, has been closely following genomic research for the last decade. In this book, she presents a comprehensive summary of where the politics of genomics currently is in America and where we are going. She contends that genomics hasn’t split into traditional left-versus-right camps (yet) primarily because most people tend to be for curing difficult diseases. However, other camps are forming, and she accordingly divides public opinion into Enthusiasts, Hopefuls, Skeptics,…

Biography-Memoir History Science

The Monk in the Garden

By Scott J. Pearson | August 30, 2020August 30, 2020 by Scott J. Pearson

An outsider’s view of scientific history deems that stories of scientific discovery are boring. After all, how could readers be interested in narratives about how people work in laboratories? To that, Henig pens her eloquent reply in an interesting tale of how an obscure monk in Eastern Europe transformed modern biology… after he died. Thus goes the all-too-human tale of humble Gregor Mendel. After joining a monastic order in the 1800s, Mendel studied science and…

Healthcare History Science Software-Technology

Life Out of Sequence: A Data-Driven History of Bioinformatics

By Scott J. Pearson | March 29, 2020March 29, 2020 by Scott J. Pearson

Upon reading the title of this book, many non-specialists might rightly ask, “What is bioinformatics? And why does it deserve its own history?” For the first question, bioinformatics is the application of computer technology to biological studies, and I hope that reading this review will answer the second question. Many of us were taught hypothesis-driven biology in school – that is, we were taught to ask a well-formed question, perform an experiment, and confirm/deny the…