The Human Genome Project: Deciphering the Blueprint of Heredity

For centuries, humans have pondered the mysteries of inheritance and heredity. Questions and observations concerning inheritance can be found throughout history, from the remarkable (if discredited) theory of pangenesis, as advanced by Hippocrates in the fifth century B.C., to Gregor Mendel keenly observing the traits of generations of garden peas. Over the course of the last 100 years, great advances have been made in unraveling these mysteries, culminating now in one of the most challenging projects in the history of science - the Human Genome Project.
Unprecedented in its scope, the Human Genome Project is an international effort that seeks to create a detailed map of human DNA. This unique book, written to be accessible to the general reader, first provides a basic introduction to the ideas underlying classical and molecular genetics before going on to describe the purpose of the Human Genome Project, its approach, its triumphs, its technological pitfalls, and its ultimate implications for society. Candid discussions by key members of the scientific community - including skeptics as well as proponents of the project - bring to life the many difficult questions this research effort has raised. Not least among these are questions of ethics, since the completed map will provide genetic engineers with heretofore impossible capabilities; one might imagine a world, for instance, in which disease-causing or disabling genes could be located and eliminated from the genome.
Through photographs, micrographs, and hundreds of beautifully rendered illustrations, many of them in color, this book creates a sense of shared excitement for the reader who follows the story of this fascinating project into the twenty-first century.