The Cooperative Gene: How Mendel's Demon Explains the Evolution of Complex Beings

Amazon.com

The Cooperative Gene is about sex and how sex enabled complex life to arise. Mark Ridley, a researcher and author of many works including the textbook Evolution, contends that simple life is "easy." Simple life like bacteria evolved as soon as conditions on Earth permitted. But complex life--walking, flying, swimming, squawking organisms with differentiated tissues--was a huge step forward. It took billions of years for complex life (and sex) to appear.

More than anything, organisms want to pass on their genes. Sex seems to defy natural selection in its ability to convince organisms to pass on only half their genes. Natural selection will favor "selfish" genes, ones that can beat the odds and get passed on. But if this happened all the time, complex life could not exist. So how does it? Enter what Ridley describes as "Mendel's demon," a system in which genes are passed on in a random fashion. Most important, the demon prevents selfish genes from sabotaging that randomness.

Although Gene isn't a technical book, its ideas are complicated. Ridley's style is methodical, broken by the occasional dryly humorous aside. Evolutionary biologists and other assorted PhDs will no doubt be entertained. Popular-science buffs may find it slow going, but they will be rewarded by a thorough understanding of the topic.

In his last two chapters, Ridley leaps further afield, exploring the influence of technology on human evolution and speculating how future science could change us. He also examines the idea of supercomplex organisms, beings that would tower over humans in complexity to the same degree that humans tower over bacteria. It's pure speculation but compelling nonetheless, worthy of its own book. --J. B. Peck

Book Description

Why isn't all life pond-scum? Why are there multimillion-celled, long-lived monsters like us, built from tens of thousands of cooperating genes? Mark Ridley presents a new explanation of how complex large life forms like ourselves came to exist, showing that the answer to the greatest mystery of evolution for modern science is not the selfish gene; it is the cooperative gene.

In this thought-provoking book, Ridley breaks down how two major biological hurdles had to be overcome in order to allow living complexity to evolve: the proliferation of genes and gene-selfishness. Because complex life has more genes than simple life, the increase in gene numbers poses a particular problem for complex beings. The more genes, the more chance for copying error; it is far easier to make a mistake copying the Bible than it is copying an advertising slogan. To add to the difficulty, Darwin's concept of natural selection encourages genes that look out for themselves, selfish genes that could easily evolve to sabotage the development of complex life forms. By retracing the history of life on our planet -- from the initial wobbly, replicating molecules, through microbes, worms, and flies, and on to humans -- Ridley reveals how life evolved as a series of steps to manage error and to coerce genes to cooperate within each body. Like a benign and unseen hand -- what Ridley calls "Mendel's Demon" -- the combination of these strategies enacts Austrian monk Gregor Mendel's fundamental laws of inheritance. This demon offers startling new perspectives on issues from curing AIDS, the origins of sex and gender, and cloning, to the genetics of angels. Indeed, if we are ever to understand the biology of other planets, we will need more than Darwin; we will need to understand how Mendel's Demon made the cooperative gene into the fundamental element of life.

What does the cooperative gene tell us about our future? With genetic technology burgeoning around the world, we must ask whether life will evolve to be even more complex than we already are. Human beings, Ridley concludes, may be near the limit of the possible, at least for earthly genetic mechanisms. But in the future, new genetic and reproductive biosystems could allow our descendants to increase their gene numbers and therefore their complexity. This process, he speculates, could lead to the evolution of life forms far stranger and more interesting than anything humanly discovered or imagined so far.

Written with uncommon energy, force, and clarity, The Cooperative Gene is essential reading for anyone wishing to see behind the headlines of our genetic age. It is an eye-opening invitation to the biotech adventure humanity has already embarked upon.

Customer Reviews:

Law enforcement in reproduction.......2005-05-10

Mark Ridley has two major themes in this book, the appearance of what he calls complexity, and the role of what he calls gender. I use this awkward repetition of words because what Ridley calls complexity is not what students of complexity call complexity, and what he calls gender is not what linguists call gender. Unfortunately he is not very precise with his definitions in either case. Indeed, in the case of complexity he recognizes his vagueness explicitly: "Complexity is an ill-defined term ... I am as puzzled as anyone by what exactly I mean when I say it." One may hope for something a bit clearer than that, but one will be disappointed. Most of the time what he seems to mean by claiming that humans are complex and bacteria are not is that a human is an organism with numerous kinds of cell, most of which have nuclei, whereas a bacterium is just a single cell with no nucleus. It is reasonable to ask what conditions allowed multi-cellular nucleated organisms to appear, but less reasonable to claim that bacteria are not complex.

The other term that is crucial for the book, but is ill-defined, is gender. Ridley uses it to distinguish sex -- the idea that an individual is the result of mixing the genetic information from two different parents -- from the idea that the two parents are different from one another, coming from two (or more) classes such that the members of the same class cannot breed with one another. Unfortunately he not only neglects to explain in so many words that this is what he means by gender, he also forgets from time to time to maintain the distinction, referring, for example, to "single-sex changing rooms" when he means, in his terms, single-gender changing rooms.

To this point I have concentrated on the more negative aspects of the book, probably excessively, because there is a large amount of interesting discussion in it as well. Ridley has a lot to say about the dangers of conflict between the different genetic components of a multi-cellular organism: conflict between nuclear and mitochondrial genes, between nuclear genes from the two different parents, between the mitochondria from different parents, and so on. He argues that avoiding and defusing potentially disastrous effects of such conflicts explains what would otherwise seem absurdly complicated and wasteful ways of doing things. Most organisms exclude the mitochondria of one parent from entering the egg when it is fertilized, but the few exceptions illustrate what can happen if they are not excluded. In mice, for example, the paternal mitochondria do enter the egg, "like missionaries walking into a cannibal feast", whereupon they are promptly destroyed. Even in humans some paternal mitochondria are able to escape the strip search of the sperm cell when it enters the egg, but they too are destroyed. Yet mitochondria are expensive to produce, and potentially valuable, so why wantonly waste them? Avoiding even more wasteful wars with the maternal mitochondra appears to be the reason.

Ridley explains that most of the apparent complications in reproduction are necessary for effective policing of the system so that it remains fair, to give genes on the two chromosomes in each pair exactly the same chance of getting into the fertilized egg. What is the point, for example, of doubling the total number of chromosomes as the first step in halving the number? Multiplying by two and then dividing by four seems an absurdly complicated way of dividing by two, but it appears to be necessary as a way of preventing cheating. Humans, incidentally, are far more at risk from trisomies like Down's syndrome than animals like rabbits that breed at much younger ages, and the risk increases with the mother's age. Ridley argues that this is related to the fact that a mother's eggs are all made at the time of her own birth, not being used until as much as forty years later. He suggests that this long period gives cheating genes the time to "learn" how to subvert the process of discarding three of the four copies of each chromosome that occurs at fertilization, so as to increase the chance of survival of a chromosome that carries a cheating gene.

The book concludes with a discussion of the future of human breeding, including the question of whether cloning is likely to be feasible (yes, almost certainly) and desirable. All of the reasons why sexual reproduction exists in the first place imply that without it errors in the genome would accumulate in an uncontrolled way and extinction would follow. This would suggest that cloning will almost inevitably produce offspring weaker and less viable than the mothers of whom they are supposedly the clones.

Fascinating Premise; Witty Writing; Vague Explanations.......2004-10-06

I don't know if Mark and Matt Ridley are brothers, but they should be. Each is English, has a doctorate, and writes in an engaging and literate way about evolution. Matt seems more interested in what is called "evolutionary psychology", discussing social issues in the light of our evolved traits. Mark is more the scientist, pursuing the fundamental questions of life. This book is about such a question: why did complex life evolve at all?

At first that might not seem like much of a question. The hard part, after all, is to get "simple" life -- a bacterium. After that, given enough time and the creative power of DNA mutations, complex life is more or less inevitable. Right?

Actually, from the evidence it seems that simple cellular life evolved rather quickly -- within a few hundred million years at most -- after it was possible for any life -- that is, after the planet had cooled down and water was mostly liquid. Yet, after that it may have taken two billion years for the eukaryotic cell to arise. That is such a large part of the total amount of time life has been on the planet that it is very possible that the eukaryotic cell might never evolve at all if the history of life were rerun.

And, according to Mark Ridley complex life -- multicellular life -- only arose because the genetic mechanisms invented by the eukaryotic cell allowed it. Complex life is complex because it has lots of parts, and requires lots of DNA, which must be duplicated from generation to generation. Copying errors turn out to be a limiting factor once you get to billions and billions of "letters" in your genome, even with the various enzymatic mechanisms for checking and correcting DNA copies (invented by bacteria billions of years ago and never improved upon). For bacteria, 99% of their offspring are perfect genetically, since their DNA is short enough that errors are unlikely. For us, we're lucky to get one or two perfect gametes in a hundred. So how in the world can we go on, generation after generation without degrading like a much-xeroxed document?

In a word, sex. This is really the crux and subject of the book: sex, gender, and the peculiarities of meiosis are there to overcome the daunting problem of copying error and allow beings with lots more DNA than a bacterium to quite faithfully reproduce themselves generation after generation. Even without any steamy scenes sex and gender are fascinating, and Ridley's explanation of why we have them (sex and gender are not the same thing) is convincing and entertaining. But I will say no more about that. You will just have to read the book, which I recommend, with some reservations.

I like Mark Ridley's writing. His sentences are graceful and laced with wit and learning. Where he falls down, though, is in the explanations, or justifications, for the material he introduces. The ideas of copying error and how it plays out in different organisms was new to me, as were the arguments justifying sex, gender, and the peculiarities of meiosis. On the way to them there were also various subsidiary conclusions, and in few cases were his explanations terribly coherent. At least part of this book had its genesis in lectures, and it shows. There are small inconsistencies: he refers to the new result of 30,000 genes in a human, for example, and later casually throws in the older presumption of 100,000, no doubt in a section lifted from an earlier talk and never corrected. But more annoyingly, his basic style of argument is what an old math professor of mine called "hand-waving". This is where you talk fast and plausably to skate over difficult points rather than using logic. Lectures to a lay audience tend to be mostly gee-whiz facts, jokes, and hand-waving arguments. Ridley is not that casual here, but still induced a kind of mental whiplash by discussing in excessive detail rather obvious points, and then making a sudden jump across an intellectual chasm to a daring conclusion, then blandly continuing.

In conclusion, I would recommend the book for its very interesting subject matter and breezy style. But I would add that you might find yourself wishing for a bit more rigor. Or not.

Excellent Book - Bizarre title change.......2003-10-03

This is another great and endlessly enjoyable work by Mark Ridley.

Just to eliminate any confusion, I want to reiterate what an earlier reviewer pointed out; the title of this book is "Mendel's Demon: Gene Justice and the Complexity of Life". The American edition of the book was published with an altered title, creating the absurd impression that this book is somehow a challenge to the landmark work "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins. Some misleading reviews printed here reflect that this silliness actualy worked as a marketing tool aimed at simpletons.

Mark Ridley was an undergraduate student of Richard Dawkins at the University of Oxford and is now a colleague of his there. Throughout Dawkins' work (ie. the preface to "The Extended Phenotype") he has lauded Ridley's brilliance, and he did so again in his review of this book.

Anyone who is confused by the name change (a routine by American publishers that plays havoc with citations) ought not to be confused about the book's implied content; it is a fascinating read about fascinating topics, not a "challenge" to something that Mark Ridley hasn't the faintest desire to attack.

Better than Dawkins.......2003-04-27

Read "Selfish Gene"? You have to read this book!

The Cooperative Gene.......2002-11-18

The Cooperative Gene: How Mendel's Demon Explains the Evolution of Complex Beings written by Mark Ridley who is one of today's leading evolutionary thinkers. This is a well-written book that brings to the reader an intellectual treat.

"The Cooperative Gene" give us clues as to why and how complex life came about. It was by natural selection by ingenious solutions to copying errors and uncooperative genes. The author explains everything in a distinctive style that is very cleve... indeed.

This book is geerd to a person with a scientic background as it delves into biology, biochemistry, and cell biology, but it isn't out of reach of a well read lay person. The author's wit and intelligence comes through and he seems to get the reader involved so you're not lost. I was pleasantly intrigued by the author's historical grounding of this book and the up to date relevance. From the initial wobbly, replicating molecules, through microbes, worms and flies till we get to mankind, the author reveals how life evolved on earth.

Natural selection encouragess genes that look out for themselves, while delfish genes that could easily evolve to sabotage the development of complex life forms. Ther author painstakenly explains the difference between a selfish and a cooperative gene. As well as giving the reader his definition of Gregor Mendel's fundamental laws of inheritance... Mendel's Demon, thus, we find out about the origins of sex, gender, and cloning.

The DNA in a human being is 6600 Million letters long and codes for about thirty thousand genes. In contrast, the DNA of a bacterium is two or three million letters long and codes for two or three thousand genes. You see where coding for a human being can bring on more mistakes. Mendelian inheritance controls how genes are inherited in complex life. It combines sex, reproduction, and the probabilistic rather than certain inheritance of genes.

Book Description

This book presents a comprehensive and updated catalogue of the already large, and rapidly growing number of chromosome aberrations in man. The consistent structure of the text and references provide for rapid orientation. The catalogue is an important help for any clinician treating patients with autosomal chromosome aberrations as well as for physicians and biologists working in cytogenic laboratories and human genetic institutes.

The Metabolic and Molecular Bases of Inherited Disease, 4 volume set

Average customer rating:

Comprehensive heavyweight

The Metabolic and Molecular Bases of Inherited Disease, 4 volume set
Barton Childs , Arthur L. Beaudet , David Valle , Kenneth W. Kinzler , and Bert Vogelstein
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Professional
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Genetics | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

Genetics | Basic Science | Medicine | Subjects | Books

General | Diseases | Medicine | Subjects | Books

General | Medicine | Subjects | Books

Diagnosis | Physician & Patient | Medicine | Subjects | Books

Endocrinology & Metabolism | Internal Medicine | Medicine | Subjects | Books

Nursing | Medicine | New & Used Textbooks | Stores | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Medicine | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Professional | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Science | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Look Inside Science Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0079130356

Book Description

Authored by the most respected clinicians and researchers in the field, THE METABOLIC AND MOLECULAR BASES OF INHERITED DISEASE, 8th Edition, is the undisputed authority on genetic inheritance. In its pages, you can explore what is currently known about every inherited disease known to exist. Here you can review genetic perspectives, basic concepts, how inherited diseases occur, diagnostic approaches, and the effects of hormones. You can research specific syndromes, or read about specific body systems affected by disease. No other reference even comes close to its authority and comprehensive scope!
* More than 50% totally new text and topics, with the remaining text totally written or updated to include the latest advances
* Expanded coverage of cancer - from six chapters to more than three dozen - advances your knowledge of this explosive disease state and cancer genetics
* New chapter on history of the inborn errors of metabolism
* New chapter on the impact of inherited disease on health
* New chapter on inherited diseases' response to treatment
* New chapters relating to newly cloned genes
* New insight on genetics' contribution to the understanding of complex traits and birth defects
* Expanded coverage of neurogenetics
* New information on comparative genomics and its relationship to the genome projects
* New sections and chapters on disorders of human somatic development
* Useful algorithms for diagnosing disorders of mitochondrial function and of mendelianclinical phenotypes

Customer Reviews:

Comprehensive heavyweight.......2001-01-10

This is a suitably vast book for a vast subject. It covers every aspect of the application of human genetics to medicine, and the reviews are not only an ideal introduction to a genetic disease, but are heavily referenced as well. This makes it ideal as a guide to the most recent literature on the subject. The introductory chapters are essential reading as well.

Average customer rating:

So true!
Disappointing
The demise of males
Very readable...great mix of geneology, genetics, and folklore
Mada-bout the bo Y

Adam's Curse: A Future without Men
Bryan Sykes
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Anatomy | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

Genetics | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Health Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

Look Inside Science Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0393058964

amazon.com

Bryan Sykes follows up The Seven Daughters of Eve with the equally challenging and well-written Adam's Curse. This time, instead of following humanity's heritage back to the first women, Sykes looks forward to a possible future without men. The seeds of the book's topics were sown when Sykes met a pre-eminent pharmaceutical company chairman who shared his surname. Using the Y chromosome, which is passed nearly unchanged from father to son, the author found that he shared a distant ancestor with the other Sykes. Along the way, he discovered that the Y chromosome was worth examining more closely. The first third of Adam's Curse is devoted to a clear and comprehensive lesson about genetics, the second narrates several fascinating stories of tracing ancestry via the Y chromosome, and the last chapters explore the history of male humanity and its future. Some readers will eagerly skim until they reach Chapter 21, where Sykes gets to the heart of the matter--why and how the Y chromosome has created a world where men overwhelmingly own the wealth and power, commit the crimes, and fight the wars. He uses the structural puniness of the Y chromosome to demonstrate that men are as unnecessary biologically as they are dominant socially. Sykes' provocative and quite personal book is likely to be unpopular among science readers who prefer their biology divorced from sociology, but his points taken in context will be difficult to refute. --Therese Littleton

Book Description

The inside story of the Y chromosome's fatal flaw, as told by one of the world's leading geneticists.

Male reproductive fragility has been the subject of much highly publicized recent research. Is it possible, asked the New York Times, that men face extinction? Bryan Sykes examines the validity of these shocking reports, focusing on the defining characteristic of men: the Y chromosome in their DNA. Guiding his readers through chapters like "The Blood of Vikings" and "Ribbons of Life," Sykes masterfully blends natural history with scientific fact, elucidating the biology of sexual reproduction, modern genetics, and evolutionary biology. He reveals that, while the Y chromosome makes man's existence possible, it also carries within it the seeds of his destruction. Timely and fascinating, this major work covers a wealth of controversial topics, including whether there is a genetic cause for male greed, aggression, and promiscuity; the possible existence of a male homosexual gene; and what, if anything, can be done to save men from a slow, but certain, extinction.

Customer Reviews:

So true!.......2007-06-27

After reading this book, I have a whole new view of the male of our species. So many things about males became clear. The aggression, the laziness, the superior attitude which is so misplaced. Ladies! A must read!

Disappointing.......2007-04-20

OK, I loved Sykes' book "The Seven Daughters of Eve." So I wanted to read this one as well. Very disappointing. For one thing, I couldn't care less about the mating and reproductive habits of insects. For another, while I understand his wish to clarify things scientifically, I thought some of his opinions about women and homosexuality were pretty outlandish. There were a few interesting things in the book. The parts about Ghengis Khan would be one example.

But my biggest issue with the book is that Sykes seems to have gotten way too full of himself and way too focused on "being a writer." Please! Do I really care what the weather was like or what the library looked like when he got idea XYZ? What made the other book so engaging was that he was just telling about the excitement of the discovery process and some of the possibilities for these women who many of us are descended from.

The demise of males.......2007-01-10

An excellent, well-written book on the genetic consequences of sex. Written in such a way that the basic genetic ideas are easily grasped by persons with no prior knowledge of DNA and the way it operates. A fascinating glimpse of the consequences of a genetic mechanism for sex determination and a time-frame for the loss of the Y chromosome and the end of males for all time. Essential freading!

Very readable...great mix of geneology, genetics, and folklore.......2006-09-14

The author does a nice job of mixing science, history, story telling, and predictions. I don't think this is aimed at the scientific crowd, that should explain some of the negative reviews. This book gives the layperson an introduction to some of the genetic knowledge that has been learned in the last 30 years, as well as many misconceptions held by scientists before that time. There is quite a bit of biology here too, comparing human reproduction with the rest of nature. I was fascinated by some of the ways in which gender is determined in turtles (tempurature of the beach), or a fish that changes its gender when its male partner dies, or some animals that have evolved into not needing male/female separation at all! The end of the book has some interesting ideas on how long until Y chromozome decay might make men extinct, or ways we might evolve to avoid this. Overall, a great read.

Mada-bout the bo Y.......2006-07-17

The punchline is that the Y chromosome is doomed - but this applies to pretty much all mammals - so what's the news? We occupy the same playing field don't we?

Before the punchline Sykes explores why the Y chromosome in humans may be especially at risk. Point the finger at the rabid dispersion of gender bending chemicals into the environment such as pthalates from plastics and oestrogen type chemicals including vast amounts of contraceptive hormones that leak into sewage and don't break down affecting fish and perhaps us? Sperm counts are going down apparently, but this is not necessarily associated with the punchline, which is on the basis of the Y chromosome not undergoing chiasma formation with the X - leading to an accumulation of mutant mistakes.

Overall the book is good at answering from the secular selfish gene point of view such obvious questions as "Why does sex exist? Why are there two sexes?". Sykes believes in William Hamilton's theories popularised by Dawkins that the gene is the ultimate unit of selection.

Despite the "triumph" of this idea according to Sykes, scientists still debate about whether it is the gene, the individual or the species that is selected. There is in fact evidence for all three. In this book, one sort of also realises that chromosomes too can be units of selection. American evolutionists generally don't like the gene centric approach. The war between mitochondrial DNA and the Y as described in this book seems to be somewhat hollow.

I don't agree that agriculture per se led to a diminution of the status of women and the establishment of a patriarchal set of civilisations epitomised by the masculinisation of the figures of the divine as men seemed to realise that they had an upper hand in procreation.

The most interesting observations of this book is facts about how the Y chromosome spreads and how it can help trace your line of decent - and how this may contradict the line of decent through the female line.

Better still is the evidence suggesting strong assymetry in the natal balance of the sexes in some families leaving aside the obvious cultural bias (in some countries) of sons over daughters. In short, certain families have skewed tendencies to have too many boys or girls which does not add up statistically. But is the explanation presented correct? There is here food for thought.

This book is fascinating though weak in places. I'm not too worried about the punchline and not sure if it is true but I have been somewhat enlightened by reading this book in that it clarifies points raised in books like the Selfish Gene. I feel the truth overall is not as clear cut as the book tries to show and therefore am not going to end up story telling about why exactly there are two sexes. There is plenty here to have conversations with for sure.

Does the gay gene exist? Is it to do with your older brothers training the mother's pregnant body to attack your masculinity if you are a younger brother? There is now some evidence for this just out.

A good read, attacking men, unfairly at times, but a good read none the less.

Genetic Testing: Care, Consent and Liability

Average customer rating:

Genetic Testing: Care, Consent and Liability
Neil F. Sharpe , and Ronald F. Carter
Manufacturer: Wiley-Liss
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Law | Subjects | Books

Jurisprudence | Perspectives on Law | Law | Subjects | Books

Medical Law & Legislation | Family & Health Law | Law | Subjects | Books

Genetics | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

Genetics | Basic Science | Medicine | Subjects | Books

General | Medicine | Subjects | Books

Medical Ethics | Physician & Patient | Medicine | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Science Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 0471649872

Book Description

A complete review of the issues with specific recommendations and guidelines.

With over 1,000 tests commercially available, genetic testing is revolutionizing medicine. Health care professionals diagnosing and treating patients today must consider genetic factors, the risks and limitations of genetic testing, and the relevant law. Genetic Testing: Care, Consent, and Liability offers the only complete, practical treatment of the genetic, clinical, ethical, and legal issue surrounding genetic testing. The authors present protocols, policies, and models of care that are currently in use, and explain the legal framework for genetic testing and counseling that has developed in North America, particularly with regard to the law of medical malpractice.

This essential book features an international roster of esteemed contributors including, Nancy P. Callanan, Bonnie S. LeRoy, Carole H. Browner, H. Mabel Preloran, Riyana Babul-Hirji, Cheryl Shuman, M.J. Esplen, Maren T. Scheuner, Dena S. Davis, JonBeckwith, Lisa Geller, Mark A. Hall, Andrew R. MacRae, David Chitayat, Roxanne Mykitiuk, Stephanie Turnham, Mireille Lacroix, Jinger G, Hoop, Edwin H, Cook, Jr., S. H. Dinwiddie, Elliot S. Gershon, C. Anthony Rupar, Lynn Holt, Bruce R. Korf, Anne Summers, S. Annie Adams, Daniel L. Van Dyke, Rhett P. Ketterling, Erik C. Thorland, Timothy Caulfield, Lorraine Sheremeta, Richard Gold, Jon F. Merz, David Castle, Peter J. Bridge, JS Parboosingh, Patricia T. Kelly, Julianne M. O'Daniel, Allyn McConkie-Rosell, Beatrice Godard, Bartha Maria Knoppers, David Weisbrot.

The coverage also includes:

Genetic screening, including prenatal, neonatal, carrier, and susceptibility testing
Diagnosis, risk assessment, confidentiality, and clinical/legal issues related to follow-up
Interpreting test results and communicating them to patients
psychological considerations
Informed consent
Family history evaluations
Referral to medical geneticists and genetic counselors

Genetic Testing Care, Consent, and Liability is a must-have resource for clinical geneticists, genetic counselors, specialists, family physicians, nurses, public health professionals, and medical students.

Download Description

This book provides the only such concise, clearly written, practical treatment of the genetic, clinical, legal, and ethical issues confronting health care professionals. It identifies protocols and policies that constitute reasonable standards of care. It also performs the invaluable job of explaining the legal framework that surrounds genetic testing to help establish policies and protocols that will protect health care professionals from allegations of malpractice. Moreover, the authors describe physician-patient relationships and how the medical genetics revolution is affecting it. It is presented in an easy-to-use format, with summaries as well as medical and legal case studies to illustrate important points.

Average customer rating:

Excellent
Useful Text
Marvelous Text
User Friendly
Masterpiece

Genomes
T. A. Brown
Manufacturer: John Wiley & Sons
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Biochemistry | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

Genetics | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

Microbiology | Basic Science | Medicine | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0471316180

Book Description

Responding to the immense changes due to recent development in research, Genomes is the first in a generation of molecular genetics books which combine standard molecular biology with more contemporary genomics. This book focuses on genome organization, expression, replication, and evolution, and includes a description of applications for molecular ecology and anthropology, reflecting the impact of genome biology on other fields of study.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent.......2007-05-06

Prof Terry Brown was one of my tutors when I was a student and the book, like the man himself, is a wealth of information which I referred to constantly. He is an excellent tutor, and the book reflects this fact. It was an enormous help to me, as indeed Terry Brown himself was.

Useful Text.......2003-10-17

"...probably the most up-to-date textbook on molecular biology...a useful text...and reference..." (Annals of Pharmacotherapy, September 2003)

Marvelous Text.......2003-01-23

"...a marvelous text...plenty of definitions and excellent illustrations essential for an introductory textbook...the reader is...guided wonderfully through the text...this text is an essential cornerstone of information..." (Pharmaceutical Research, Vol. 19, No. 12, December 2002)

User Friendly.......2002-12-11

"...a second edition to incorporate new developments in genome science and to make the book more `user friendly'...the book substantially exceeds that modest objective; this is a text suitable for anyone who does not specialize in genome science." (Clinical Chemistry, Vol. 48, No. 12)

Masterpiece.......2002-11-19

"...this didactic masterpiece...model of a modern university textbook deserves to be read and studied by...students worldwide." (Modern Pathology, Vol. 15, No. 9, 2002)

Average customer rating:

Atlas of Mammalian Chromosomes

Manufacturer: Wiley-Liss
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Genetics | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

Biochemistry | Basic Science | Medicine | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Medicine | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Professional | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Science | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 047135015X

Book Description

A stunning visual collection of the banded metaphase chromosome karyotypes from some 850 species of mammals, the Atlas of Mammalian Chromosomes represents an unabridged compendium of the state of this genomic art form. Bringing together information currently scattered throughout the cytogenetics literature for scores of published and unpublished species, this atlas features high-quality karyotype images for nearly every mammal studied to date, making it the most comprehensive assemblage of high-resolution chromosome photographs available—a critically invaluable resource for today's comparative genomics era.

For every available species, the Atlas of Mammalian Chromosomes presents the best karyotype produced, the common and Latin name of the species, the published citation, and the contributing authors. Most karyotypes are G-banded, revealing the chromosomal bar codes of homologous segments among related species.

Book Description

Pui-Yan Kwok, MD, PhD, has assembled a comprehensive collection of readily reproducible techniques for the difficult process of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) discovery and genotyping. These cutting-edge protocols for mutation/SNP detection utilize denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography (dHPLC), single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP), conformation-sensitive gel electrophoresis (CSGE), chemical cleavage, and direct sequencing. Equally powerful and up-to-date methods are given for genotyping SNPs, including molecular beacons, the Taqman assay, single-base extension approaches, pyrosequencing, ligation, the Invader assay, and primer extension with mass spectrometry detection.

Flow Cytometry with Plant Cells: Analysis of Genes, Chromosomes and Genomes

Average customer rating:

Flow Cytometry with Plant Cells: Analysis of Genes, Chromosomes and Genomes

Manufacturer: Wiley-VCH
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Genetics | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 3527314873

Book Description

Targeted at beginners as well as experienced users, this handy reference explains the benefits and uses of flow cytometery in the study of plants and their genomes. Following a brief introduction that highlights general considerations when analyzing plant cells by flow cytometric methods, the book goes on to discuss examples of application in plant genetics, genomic analysis, cell cycle analysis, marine organism analysis and breeding studies.
With its list of general reading and a glossary of terms, this first reference on FCM in plants fills a real gap by providing first-hand practical hints for the growing community of plant geneticists.

Atlas of Human Chromosome Heteromorphisms

Average customer rating:

No longer available

Atlas of Human Chromosome Heteromorphisms

Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Genetics | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

Anatomy | Basic Science | Medicine | Subjects | Books

Genetics | Basic Science | Medicine | Subjects | Books

General | Medicine | Subjects | Books

All Amazon Upgrade | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

Medicine | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

Professional & Technical | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

Science | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Catalogue of Unbalanced Chromosome Aberrations in Man

ASIN: 1402013035

Book Description

This book is not a panacea. However, it does provide, for the first time in one place, a comprehensive view of human chromosome heteromorphisms, their applications, and their often speculated roles in aberrant chromosome behaviour relating to abnormal phenotype, pregnancy loss and cancer. More significantly, the book is a pictorial atlas for common and unusual heteromorphisms and euchromatic variants as they have been studied both by classical banding techniques and by newer molecular or FISH technologies. To facilitate its use as a laboratory or clinical reference, plates in a pictorial section are organized by chromosome number with the most recent ISCN ideogram, summary and extensive list of references for each chromosome. A final pictorial section is devoted to FISH variants. The book is a work in progress, with submission of new variants encouraged for future editions

Customer Reviews:

No longer available.......2006-01-31

A valuable piece of work for professionals in the field of (cyto)genetics. However, it is no longer available at the publisher or anywhere else, including Amazon.

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books