Documents the story of how scientists took cells from an unsuspecting descendant of freed slaves and created a human cell line that has been kept alive indefinitely, enabling discoveries in such areas as cancer research, in vitro fertilization, and gene mapping.

"This is a gripping medical narrative that brings readers into the complex world of newborn intensive care, where brilliant but imperfect doctors do all they can to coax life into their tiny, injured patients. Dr. Adam Wolfberg--journalist, physician specializing in high-risk pregnancies, and father to a child born weighing under two pounds--describes his daughter Larissa's precipitous birth at six months, which left her tenuously hanging on to life...

Our genes are the master-code of instructions that makes and defines humans; it governs our form, function, and fate, and that determines the future of our children. The story of the gene begins in earnest in an obscure Augustinian abbey in Moravia in 1856 as Mendel's idea of a "unit of heredity;" intersects with Darwin's theory of evolution, and collides with the horrors of Nazi eugenics in the 1940s. Mukherjee tells the story of her own family and...

"The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every human being on the planet and forced us all to reflect on the bioethical issues it raises. In this timely book, Gregory Pence examines a number of relevant issues, including the fair allocation of scarce medical resources, immunity passports, tradeoffs between protecting senior citizens and allowing children to flourish, discrimination against minorities and the disabled, and the myriad issues raised by vaccines."--...