Mapping the code : the Human Genome Project and the choices of modern science /

In a timely and clear exposition, Davis chronicles the unprecedented effort to chart and decode all 23 human chromosomes. Though well-versed in biological science, the author avoids technicalities in sketching a plain English description of the procedures used to locate and dissect genes. (A glossary helpfully defines key terms.) Davis not only dispells much of the mystery surrounding laboratory work, he also exposes the egotism and political ambitions that have not infrequently motivated those performing or directing the research. Of more fundamental interest, the book provides an outline of the ethical questions that need answers from those acquiring unprecedented power to illuminate--and eventually control--the human gene pool. Too journalistic to satisfy geneticists or stylists, this book will nonetheless be welcomed by general readers trying to understand revolutionary technologies that may profoundly affect generations to come. Selected bibliography; to be indexed. ~--Bryce Christensen

In contrast to Lois Wingerson's Mapping Our Genes ( LJ 6/1/90) and Jerry Bishop and Michael Waldholz's Genome ( LJ 7/90), both largely journalistic accounts that dwell on the medical implications of the Human Genome Project, Davis's book focuses more on the project's scientific, technical, and political aspects. This project is actually numerous projects--some of which are competing, and others of which are purely commercial enterprises--all operating under the umbrella of the biggest ``Big Science'' undertaking ever conceived in the biological sciences. This is the strongest of the three books at depicting the scientific processes and, because of this emphasis, there is relatively little substantive overlap with the other two. This text can be somewhat technical, but readers who want a complete and detailed account of the project will find it only here. Bishop and Waldholz's book will serve as the preferred popular account.-- Gregg Sapp, Montana State Univ. Lib., Bozeman (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Davis (Endorphins, 1984) puts the human genome project in its proper perspective in this well-researched, well-written account. He does so by looking at the evolution of the concept, as well as seeing it in the context of politics, of the need for the US to maintain leadership or at least parity in the global biomedical research community, and of the fierce competition for funds among research investigators. Davis's early chapters are a capsule summary of the history of genetics, from Mendel through Watson/Crick to the present effort to map and sequence all 100,000 genes that lie on human chromosomes. Next he discusses changes in the environment of science--the move to Big Science, the growing proprietary nature of genetic research, and competition within the government between the Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health. The appointment of James D. Watson to head a new Center for Human Genome Research at NIH has resolved some of these concerns, but Watson himself got into hot water with his one-nation/one-chromosome idea for dividing the work, and has also been taken to task for the slow pace of progress. Now it appears that more realistic sights are being set and that scientists are coming to grips with new problems--such as disagreements over which chromosome contains the gene for which Big Disease (like schizophrenia). Nevertheless, the project has gained momentum and, in spite of the admonitions of the Jeremy Rifkins (very neatly described), holds great promise. A complex subject, adroitly handled--and nicely complementary to Jerry E. Bishop and Michael Waldholz's more scientifically detailed Genome (p. 771) and Lois Wingerson's more human-interest-oriented Mapping our Genes (p. 722). Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.