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Searching... | 30000004735043 | RC406.A24 W44 2005 | Open Access Book | Book | Searching... |
Searching... | 30000004735084 | RC406.A24 W44 2005 | Open Access Book | Book | Searching... |
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Summary
Summary
Pulitzer-prize winning author Jonathan Weiner's fascinating tale of a family's desperate gamble in the emerging science of gene therapy. Biology used to be a science of the way things are. Now it is a science of the way things work, like physics or engineering. Biology's progress fascinates and appals us because it has gone from learning the ways of nature to trying to turn her. In his extraordinary new book, Jonathan Weiner reveals the life-changing discoveries that have been converging over the past half a century to bring us to a moment when biology has the power to change life as we know it. When Stephen Heywood, a carpenter, discovered he had A.L.S., a gradual, mysterious deterioration of the nervous system, Jamie Heywood, gave up his lucrative job to try and save his brother's life. He worked with cutting-edge scientists in a race to find a cure. Through this remarkable journey with a family in crisis, we are given an overview of the various gene therapies that are still on the horizon, capable of potentially bringing back those suffering from neurological diseases such as ALS, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and other various disorders of the brain. Through Jonathan Weiner's trans
Reviews 3
Publisher's Weekly Review
At the heart of this report from the front lines of gene therapy and other regenerative medicine techniques lies a simple, heartbreaking question: "What would you do to save your brother''s life?" When Stephen Heywood, a 29-year-old carpenter, was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (also known as Lou Gehrig's disease), his older brother, Jaime, launched his own research project to search for a cure. It was the late 1990s, shortly after scientists had cloned a living creature for the first time. So when Jamie told a friend about research demonstrating that the DNA of every ALS victim was missing a protein, his response ("Why don't you just put the damn protein back?") seemed wildly optimistic but not entirely impossible-if they could figure out how to do it in time. Weiner (The Beak of the Finch) keeps the actual science to a minimum. The story's power derives from attention to small, human details, like Stephen's first symptoms of losing strength in his fingers. The emotional register is also strong; Weiner spends so much time with the Heywoods that they begin to refer to him as one of the family, and his closeness allows him to effectively contrast their handling of Stephen's condition to his own family's reaction to his mother's bout with a similar nerve-death disease. Weiner can't give readers a happy ending for Stephen, but he can-and does-offer a powerful account of equal parts ambition and hope. (Mar.) Forecast: Weiner's The Beak of the Finch won the Pulitzer and his Time, Love, Memory won the NBCC Award. Also, Weiner has a five-city tour plus additional lecture tie-ins, as well as other national media planned. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Not a baseball star like Lou Gehrig.ust an ordinary carpenter afflicted with the same terrible degenerative disease that struck down the acclaimed ballplayer. But in recounting this carpenter's descent into neuromuscular paralysis and his devoted brother's heroic fight to stop that descent, Weiner allows his readers to visit the very frontiers of medical science--and to contemplate the oldest of human loyalties. Two intertwined transformations propel the narrative: the doomed sufferer's pathetic metamorphosis from robust and versatile handyman into wheelchair-bound paraplegic and the brother's improbable emergence as a relentless explorer of genetic science deploying the redirected skills of a mechanical engineer. The linked chronicles of personal change teach a great deal about the grim progress of an ugly disease and even more about the promising yet still risky therapies now tantalizing--often frustrating--desperate patients and hopeful experimenters. His sympathy for both brothers deepened by his own mother's downward spiral into nerve death, Weiner delivers a denouement at once unsentimentally candid and humanely affirmative. A poignant and probing look at both the potential and the limitations of pioneering medicine. --Bryce Christensen Copyright 2004 Booklist
Library Journal Review
The multi-award-winning author examines the new biology by focusing on two brothers, one suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease and the other who quit his job to found an organization seeking a cure. The publication date was pushed up from June to March at press time. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.