The Science and Ethics of Engineering the Human Germ Line

In clear, lively prose, The Science and Ethics of Engineering the Human Germ Line: Mendel's Maze provides an authoritative treatment of the principles of science and bioethics that bear upon such technologies as germ-line insertion and cloning. It offers a realistic assessment of possible applications, limitations, and new developments likely to arise in these areas.

Written by a top physician-investigator, this book progresses from the basics of building a living organism from inanimate parts through to recombinant DNA technology, assisted reproductive technologies, and gene transfer and germ-line engineering. Ethical considerations are woven into this material throughout, while a special section covers the intellectual role played by various social biases.

As genetic and reproductive technologies spread from the laboratory to the clinic-and society takes further notice-students and practitioners of biology and medicine, as well as the interested general reader, will find The Science and Ethics of Engineering the Human Germ Line: Mendel's Maze to be an essential and accessible guide to these important subjects.

Dr. Gordon graduated from Columbia University with a major in Biology in 1971.  He obtained a Ph.D. Yale University in 1978, receiving an award for the best Ph.D. thesis in Biology that year. In 1980 Dr. Gordon graduated with honors from Yale University Medical School. In the two years following medical school Dr. Gordon, in collaboration with Frank H. Ruddle at Yale University, produced the first "transgenic" mouse, a mouse with genes from another species inserted into the germ line.  Since then he has pioneered new techniques for assisting fertilization in human in vitro fertilization and has published many research papers, reviews and opinion papers on the science and ethics of gene transfer and related reproductive technologies. He is an internationally recognized authority in the area of germ line gene transfer.