Altered Fates: The Genetic Re-engineering of Human Life - Softcover

Gorner, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393315282 ISBN 13: 9780393315288

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996

Synopsis

Seven years in the making, Altered Fates chronicles the saga of gene therapy, a medical revolution unparalleled in human history.

In the pages of this rich and detailed narrative, whose characters include the field's leading scientists as well as key patients and their families, the Pulitzer Prize-winning authors tell the story of the race to be the first to do gene therapy (a feat almost certain to garner a Nobel Prize and a place in medical history), uncovering the behind-the-scenes machinations and rivalries among the prima-donna researchers at some of the world's leading medical centers, including the National Institutes of Health. They also reveal the details of the initial human experiments in gene transfer and the agonizing decisions faced by the families of the first children to be submitted to the therapy.

As Daniel Kevles observed in the New York Times Book Review, "Mr. Lyon and Mr. Gorner are highly knowledgeable about the state of human and medical genetics, and their treatment of both the science and its practitioners is vivid, accessible, and . . . gripping."

About this title

About the Author

Jeff Lyon and Peter Gorner, recipients of the Pulitzer Prize for Journalism in 1987 for the stories on which Altered Fates was based, write for the Chicago Tribune. They live in Chicago.

Edition details

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393315282
• ISBN 13: 9780393315288
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 636